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Purpose – To present the connection between modern network theory and Hayek's ideas on the brain and spontaneous orders.

Methodology/approach – To show that Hayek's ideas on the brain, spontaneous order, and why socialism cannot work are confirmed by network and self-organization theory, and to use network and self-organization theory to bridge Hayek's theory of the mind to his work on spontaneous orders.

Findings – Spontaneous orders are scale-free networks, but humans evolved a preference for hierarchical networks, which are typical of tribes and firms – and socialism. However, hierarchies only work for teleological organizations, not for ateleological spontaneous orders like economies. Part of the human preference for human-organized networks comes from our “intentional stance,” which automatically sees patterns as evidence of an organizer.

Research limitations/implications – This work acts as an introduction to possible directions in spontaneous order research. New work in bridging evolutionary and cognitive psychology (which includes Hayek's work) with self-organization and network theory acts as a promising development for neuro-Hayekians.

Social implications – Understanding there is an evolutionary bias for certain kinds of networks, even though those are not appropriate for certain kinds of social orders, and understanding the nature of these networks should help us understand the true relationships among individuals, organizations, and spontaneous orders.

Originality/value of chapter – This work brings Hayek “up to date,” with network theory and self-organization, showing to what extent Hayek was talking about these concepts. Seeing the similarities and differences between hierarchical and scale-free networks helps one understand how they come about, and in what contexts.

Purpose – The conceptual ideas of Hebb, Heisenberg, and Feynman are embedded in the framework Hayek's so-called New Psychology. The present survey tries to bridge these concepts.

Methodology – A theoretical and empirical informed approach.

Findings – The theory of D. O. Hebb opened the way to “Neurobiology of Learning” in the past century. The S-Matrix theory of Werner Heisenberg and the so-called Feynman Diagrams that consider everything in the path-history of particles opened up new avenues to predict production of elementary particles. This as Hayek proposed or assumed in his theoretical monograph The Sensory Order.

Originality/value of paper – Besides Fuster and Edelman few (if any) currently practicing neuroscientists have any knowledge of or appreciation of Hayek's philosophical psychology.

Purpose – To explore lines of inquiry by Hayek and C. S. Peirce on sensation and cognition and Hayek's interest in Peirce.

Methodology – To compare Hayek and Peirce's relational interpretations of sensation and cognition.

Research limitations – The theories of both Hayek and Peirce on sensation and cognition are more extensive than can be addressed here. This exploration is more suggestive than comprehensive.

Findings – Both Hayek and Peirce emphasized the relational and abstract nature of human mental processes. Hayek viewed his contribution as overlapping with psychology while Peirce viewed his theory as being logically before psychology.

Social implications – The ideas of Peirce and Hayek imply that the traditional empiricist and rationalist epistemologies of cognition and sensation are limited and incomplete and thus embrace cognitive inefficiencies.

Originality/value of paper – Hayek's brief references and interest in the ideas of C. S. Peirce have not yet been explored to date.

Purpose – To present Hayek's model of the sensory order, especially in relation to communication, classification and subjective knowledge, arguing for the necessity of a more articulated theory of the “inter-personal” dimension of the mind. We proposed then to integrate Hayek's model of the mind with the concept of “folk psychology” or “theory of mind” elaborated by modern philosophy.

Methodological approach – This chapter is philosophical but draws on the empirical.

Findings – Hayek proposed a model of the mind and the social order that explains how dispersed and fragmented knowledge can spread in a society of individuals [Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530]. His social and psychological theories have been dedicated to the study of the spontaneous emergence of orders: institutional and mental orders are tightened together in his epistemology. However, we found that Hayek developed only in nuce the social dimension of the mind: behaviors are determined by mental events and his philosophical psychology is then “mentalistic,” that is focused on the understanding of individual inner psychological states, their relation with external stimuli and behaviors, without explaining how individuals interpret other people's mental states.

Research limitations/implications – Hayek seems not to explicitly consider the interaction between personal psychological events and other people's mental events, missing then a fundamental activity played by the mental order, that is the capacity to understand, interpret, and attribute other people's mental states, in a word to mentalize.

Originality/value of the paper – To read Hayek's philosophical psychology under a new light, which focus on the importance of the interpersonal dimension of mental processes.

Purpose – To define the links between cognition and entrepreneurial behavior by highlighting the problem of complexity in the difficult trade-off between discovery of new opportunities and exploitation of current opportunities.

Methodology/approach – To interrelate Austrian tools (Hayek, Kirzner, Lachmann) with lessons from experimental economics.

Research limitations and implications – This contribution enters the world of entrepreneurship to show where the mental rigidities opposing discoveries lie.

Originality/value of paper – To use experimental economics to widen our understanding of entrepreneurship and invite the Austrian scholars to imagine other protocols that might deepen the analysis.