The concept of culture in F. A. Hayek's thought and its relation with his approach to progress and civilization

This dissertation discusses and describes the concept of culture in a Classical Liberal perspective. Analysis of the primary sources of Classical Liberal philosophy presents that almost none of the prominent names of classical liberalism has composed a particular work on culture, which is one of the main concepts of social sciences and social theory. Although those philosophers have social theories or views on emergence of social order, the concept of culture is briefly or never adopted to their thoughts. This makes us to face a criticism that Classical Liberals are only concerned with economy and politics, which is needed to be responded in order to find answers to an important question in political philosophy. This dissertation aims to perform such a task through discussing Hayek's thoughts on culture within his social theory and draw a frame with respect to political theory. As one of the important modern philosophers of the classical liberal tradition, whose social theory is complete and consistent as much as comprehensive to the extent of learning capacity of human beings and emergence of social order, Hayek's thoughts are believed to be important to make a classical liberal description of culture. Thus, throughout this dissertation, Hayek's view on culture is discussed and they are analyzed in terms of political theory.