David Kelley

Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek were notable 20th century advocates of libertarianism, and both of them based their political views, in part, on theories in epistemology. This paper discusses the radical difference in their views on a core epistemological issue, the nature of abstractions. Rand held that we form abstractions from the observation of particular, concrete things. Hayek held the opposite view that abstractions are primary; some are innate, some acquired from our cultural environment, but neither can be independently supported by observation of concretes. Kelley will show why Hayek’s view is both false and inconsistent with a fully individualist moral and political theory.

Knowledge must be grounded in evidence in accordance with epistemological principles. This monograph distinguishes two kinds of principle: rules of evidence and rules of justification. Rules of evidence, such the canons of inductive and deductive logic, specify what sort of evidence is relevant to what sort of conclusion. Rules of justification specify what a person's cognitive state must be if he is to be justified in accepting a conclusion. This distinction makes it possible to explain how our knowledge can be fully justified all the way down to its foundations in perception.