Hayek was in many respects a philosophical idealist, in that he believed that ideas rule the world. It was the idea of constructivism, he thought, th… - Alan O. Ebenstein

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Hayek was in many respects a philosophical idealist, in that he believed that ideas rule the world. It was the idea of constructivism, he thought, that has such destructive consequences. If he could combat this idea, then much good would result.

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About Alan O. Ebenstein

Alan O. (Lanny) Ebenstein (born 28 May 1959) is an American political scientist, and the author of Friedrich Hayek: A Biography, the first English language biography of Hayek, and Hayek’s Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek.

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Alternative Names: Alan Oliver
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Hayek died in Freiburg, Germany, on March 23, 1992, less than two months shy of his ninety-third birthday. After 1985, he was unable to work and lost contact with almost all friends and associates. In his last years, almost the only people with whom he had regular contact were his wife, Helene; secretary Charlotte Cubitt, whom he always called “Mrs. Cubitt”; children Larry and Christine Hayek; and Bartley. Hayek was grateful to Cubitt for her assistance from 1977 to 1992. He inscribed in her copy of The Fatal Conceit in 1990: “In gratitude for all her help over so many years F. A. Hayek.”
During his last years, he had periods of more and less lucidity, as well as being ill and depressed. Lord Harris of the Institute of Economic Affairs wrote in his obituary of Hayek that “by 1989 the great man had lost touch with affairs.” He was buried in Vienna, the place of his birth.
[...] Friedrich Hayek was the greatest political philosopher of liberty during the twentieth century.

During World War II it was exciting and unexpected for Hayek to find someone else, from Vienna, who was interested in many of the same topics that he was. The Open Society and Its Enemies has three main parts, on Plato, Hegel, and Marx. The next main chapters in Hayek’s uncompleted “The Abuse and Decline of Reason,” on which he was at work then, were to be on Hegel and Marx. In addition, Popper’s scholarly style was similar to Hayek’s, with extremely extensive notes.

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True and false individualism differ, according to Hayek, not primarily about values but about facts. The question of how societies are actually ordered or organized separates them: Are communities created, or do they evolve? The answer is obviously some combination of the two, but the relative weighting is of the greatest importance.

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