Scott Scheall

Contributor

Scott Scheall is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Science in Arizona State University‘s College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.

Scott has published extensively on topics related to the history and philosophy of the Austrian School of economics.

  • Complexity, Scientism, and Contemporary Politics

    “The scientistic attitude encourages policymakers to adopt what Hayek called a ‘pretense of knowledge,’ an overconfident, if not plainly false, belief in their own knowledge and powers of social control.” ~ Scott Scheall

    Complexity, Scientism, and Contemporary Politics
  • The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance

    “Policymakers are forever in search of causal knowledge and powers – to both know enough and be capable of bringing about specific states of social affairs – that no mortal can possess.” ~ Scott Scheall

    The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance
  • Science Is More Complex than Advertised

    “The perpetuation of the myth of ‘The Scientific Method’ encourages the pretense that we understand science. More to the point, it encourages the false notion that, because we understand science so well, we can always rely on the implications of a thing called ‘The Science’ as the fount of all political wisdom.” ~ Scott Scheall

    Science Is More Complex than Advertised
  • There Are No Experts On That for Which We Really Need Experts

    “The pandemic has revealed a shortcoming in our ever more technocratic approach to addressing social problems: there are more and different kinds of problems than there are kinds of experts. The division of scientific expertise according to discipline, field, and sub-field does not encompass, much less map onto, all of the problems for which we…

    There Are No Experts On That for Which We Really Need Experts