Apriorism, Introspection, and the Axiom of Action: A Realist Solution

[wilderness]

[Published in Quart J Austrian Econ (2007)]

Apriorism, Introspection, and the Axiom of Action: A Realist Solution by Francois Facchini

@Conclusion

Thomism creates a place for social ontology without denying the importance of hypothetico-deductive economics, which is not only an instrument of forecast, as argued by instrumentalism (Maki 1990, p. 331), but also a means of knowing the qualitative relations between economic phenomena. Economics has an ontological dimension that seeks to find the relationship between the essence of prices, money, exchange, etc., in order to highlight economic universals, not just the quantitative dimension of economic facts.

An explanation is not limited to forecasting and describing economic phenomena in quantitative form (Maki 1990, pp. 331-335). Economic science consists in saying what is, by describing the relations between the universals of economics and by approaching as closely as possible the mysteries of the singular reality or action. Austrian subjectivism would thus be prepared to position its reasoning on the highest level of abstraction, taking the risk of universality and sacrificing the singularity of specific and contingent situations. Consequently it links methodological subjectivism and ontological objectivism (Maki 1990, p. 295) and gives us the means to rectify our beliefs. It is ontological objectivism that enables us to affirm that we can have knowledge of economic phenomena that transcends our prejudices, opinions, and preconceptions about the world.

P.S. I added this from the article as this may interest some seeing that potency and actuality come up in discussions on the forum at times:

@Same Article: On social evolution and the epistemological role

Indeed, we have just come to understand how the human mind discovers reality: it apprehends reality, i.e., the only thing common to all things. “Beyond the diversities between beings, there is only being which belongs to everyone” (Daujat 1974, p. 37). That common, underlying reality is, in fact, stable. It is therefore unreasonable to claim that reality is unknowable because the sense data are constantly changing (Moreau 1976, p. 8). What comes first in the act of knowledge is the recognition of the identity of something with itself. Each thing is what it is (the principle of identity) and a thing is not what it is not (the principle of contradiction). To understand why the identity of a thing does not negate change, it is important to introduce the distinction between the actual and the potential (Aquinas 1961, p. 654). The actuality of a thing is the thing as it exists. If only the actuality existed, there would be no change. The potential is a thing as it could be, but is not yet. It is becoming. The potential of a thing, that which it can be, marks the point of departure. Change comes neither from what already is, nor from what is not, but from what is potential but not yet actualized (Daujat 1974, p. 62).

For potency and actuality are referred in most cases to things in motion, because motion is the actuality of a being in potency. But the principle aim of this branch of science is to consider potency and actuality, not insofar as they are found in mobile beings, but insofar as they accompany being in general. Hence potency and actuality are also found in immobile beings, for instance, in intellectual ones. (Aquinas 1961, p. 654)

On this basis we can reconcile two facts: that the human being is not perceived as an actor and that human rationality is an essence. History discovers human rationality (magic) and individualism (holism). The history of human societies does not change the nature of human beings but increases the knowledge that men and women have of themselves. Knowledge is not, pace hermeneutic philosophy, merely “a history of problems” (Foucault). It is about familiarity with the particulars of time and place, as they relate to universal categories. Thomist philosophy thus reconciles the historicity of the categories of action with their universality.