An Inconsistent Argument In Human Action.

[bcyclwutztht]

@Jesse

By “method” I meant “logical method.” (and by “logical method” I mean “If p then q, q, therefore p”) I don’t think that there is much disagreement over what the standards of success are: it is the achievement of the ends sought after. The bigger question is what the standards of truth are; since ‘success’ is hardly sufficient. The fact that action based on a given category (e.g., causality) is successful says very little about the category’s truth-value. Mises was certainly aware of this, but I don’t think that he saw the full skeptical implications of it. If our categories of knowledge are not ‘true’ but merely ‘successful’, then we are no better off than those positivist economists who say (similarly) that their hypotheses are not true, but predictively successful. The only difference between rationalist economics and positive economics, it seems to me, is that the positive economists can make new hypotheses whenever their old ones are “falsified.” Mises could never make a new “catagory of causality” for his economics; it isn’t an idea that is falsifiable in the first place. If you are going to be a rationalist in economics, you are more or less stuck with Mises’s categories; rejecting them doesn’t make sense. However, given an evolutionary account of the mind, there is no reason to expect truth to make sense.

A significant part of praxeology isn’t set up like that—it goes from inside out, not from outside in.

(1) Here’s praxeology:

If preferences, then choice.

Preferences. Therefore choice.

(2) here’s empiricism:

If preferences, then choice.

Choice. Therefore, preferences.

I say this because praxeology (an important part of it, at least) roots itself in the synthetic a priori. Its truth value emanates from the inside out, like in argument (1).

(2) of course, is a fallacy in formal logic. But (1) is perfectly valid.

Your argument is 100% correct in that there’s something empirical in the nature of praxeology. As per IRyan here, we know that Mises couldn’t find a logically necessary bridge between, on the one hand, his internal understanding of himself as a (human) actor; and on the other hand, his ability to apply that understanding to interpreting the behavior of other people. Mises crosses the empirical threshold at this point, and he justifies his empirical leap with “well, it works.”

My guess is there’s a distinct portion of praxeological propositions which can be established with logical necessity—namely, those which can be deduced from interpreting the action axiom in the first person: “My behavior is purposeful”. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was exactly one half of them.

Worse case scenario: You are analyzing social behavior. You’re forced by the powers that be to make a choice: (1) praxeology; or (2) empiricism. Do you see any difference now?