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This is an essay in the history of ideas exploring the implications of Hayek’s complex body of work for doing social science. I am concentrating on Hayek since he is the best known exponent of the Austrian school’s Theory of Subjective Values. My presentation is motivated by two concerns: one, to show the continuing relevance of his entire opus and two, to counterbalance the influence of the dominant narrow interpretation of Hayek as the patron saint of free market liberalism. Even though he himself did not object to this image, a careful reading of his scholarly work shows his preoccupation with much more wide-ranging societal, even philosophical issues! As I will show in this paper, he wrote lucidly about the law, economics, justice, and democracy, topics whose discussion often generates more heat than illumination. If the impact of the sphere of economics in political life is one of the most important aspects of modernity, then Hayek’s analysis of the problematic relation between economics and politics is a significant contribution to our understanding of the contemporary world. I will introduce his argument for why the two should be treated as autonomic. He considered any crossing from politics into economics or vice versa a category mistake. Another distinctive feature of Hayek’s overall approach besides carrying forward the Austrian school’s agenda, was his rethinking of history and social institutions in the light of the limits of human knowledge. History and social institutions accordingly appear as order which emerges unplanne