Hayek on Knowledge

The growth of knowledge and the growth of civilization are only the same if we interpret knowledge to include all human adaptations to environment in which past experience has been incorporated. Not all knowledge in this sense is part of our intellect, nor is our intellect the whole of our knowledge. Our habits and skills, our emotional attitudes, our tools, and our institutions -- all are in this sense adaptations to past experience which have grown up by elimination of less suitable conduct. They are as much an indispensable foundation of successful action as is our conscious knowledge.

F. A. Hayek