I have made the suggestion elsewhere (back on austrianforum.com way back when as well as privately with Lilburne), about applying Austrian Economics in a symbolic logic framework. However, I recently found out that (surprise surprise), Rothbard has already written about this in MES, p. 75-76. I then proceeded footnote chasing to check out his argument, and I was brought to “Towards a Reconstruction of Utility And Welfare Economics”, which re-espoused similar arguments; however, both reference a French text Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie by André Lalande, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), pp. 574, 579. I know enough French to probably struggle through it with a dictionary, but despite my completely honest and reputable means of obtaining the book I can’t get my grubby hands on it.
Anyone have better Google-fu than myself/have access to it/know the quotation by heart?
Also, while I’m bringing this up, it seems that Rothbard’s arguments are, “The symbolic logic approach should not be taken because it does not add any more necessary rigor to the system.” Any thoughts to the argument that, “The symbolic logic approach should be taken because…well…it will attract scholars who have immediately dismissed Austrian Economics as having no rigor.” I.e., while I might concede the argument to Rothbard on rigor (depending on whether I’m convinced by the mysterious citation), even if I do, does it not seem like a worthy endeavour to “cover our bases” as it were and for purposes of strategy and propaganda to place it in such a framework?
Either way, if there was a group of people convinced that banging on drums in 3/4 time to communicate was the best way to communicate, I don’t think that it would be bad practice if someone suddenly tried to communicate the ideas of liberty by purchasing a drum.
(Seriously, that was the best analogy I could come up with? Orz…)
First of all, the word “symbol logic” is pretty vague.
But, either way, with the most rigor possible, AE would still be “verbal” in the sense that everything meaningful would be an arrangement of words or symbols referring to something. Sure, we could build a “symbolic logic” to express it with; however we wouldn’t get anywhere without substituting a bunch of meaningful symbols into it in the right order and whatever. In fact, it would be possible (for all I know) to build a symbolic logic which would mechanically rid of us any errors in deduction; but it would still be possible to express absurdities with it: After all, plenty of our imaginary constructions are totally logical; the only difference between them and our models of the real world are whether the assumptions apply to reality, and of course that’s a matter of empirical evidence, not of deductive logic. Sure, AE requires doing a lot of deductive logic/reasoning (mostly because we express it with a natural language, and for some reason tolerate having 1,000 synonyms); but it’s still grounded in realistic axioms - which aren’t always totally obvious.
But, with that said, it’s important to understand that AE is in its infancy, and simply wouldn’t be able to handle the rigor that imposing a constructed language (like a symbolic logic) onto it would suggest to us. (Right now, it’s more suitable to being expressed with the dust and ambiguity of a natural language.) For example, read a bit of Human Action, and just ask yourself whether we could make all of the inferences and axioms totally explicit at this point. It’s absolutely staggering just how many implicit assumptions that he simply takes for granted. At every turn, we find a practically countless number of them. Sure, it’s as rigorous as real economics gets at this point in history (at least as far as I know); but that’s not to say that it’s even close to warranting trying to spell out all of the inferences (especially since most of the inferences revolve around trying to wade through the useless intricacy of a natural language). Indeed, it’s hard enough just to follow what’s explicit; so try looking under the surface, and you will find yourself absolutely bewildered. But that’s not to say that it isn’t possible; it’s just to say that, if somebody pulls it off, it would be a momentous innovation, rather than a mere translation.
“But, with that said, it’s important to understand that AE is in its infancy, and simply wouldn’t be able to handle the rigor that imposing a constructed language (like a symbolic logic) onto it would suggest to us.”
I don’t think that’s true. It’s very easy for someone with the most rudimentary knowledge of mathematical logic, or even advanced calculus [anything that taught him about upside down A’s and reversed E’s] to slap it together. It’s extremely tedious of course, but no big deal.
Even Mathematics, which loves Symbolic logic, uses everyday speech most of the time when it comes to doing the thinking. Just a random thought that occurred to me.
“It’s absolutely staggering just how many implicit assumptions that he simply takes for granted. At every turn, we find a practically countless number of them.”
Ah, if this is true then the problem is not one of symbolic logic, but of some spade work that has to be done before the symbolic logician’s work can even begin. A logician says “Tell me your axioms and and your asserted conclusion, and I’ll check it out for you.”
But what you are saying certainly goes against all that I have ever read about praxeology as applied to economics by Mises. The usual line is that there are 5 axioms, tops [Rothbard says this]. And Mises would probably have felt obligated to rewrite the book if he thought it contained countless hidden axioms,
Back in my eccentrically geeky days I actually tried unsuccessfully to try to develop a symbolic language to express everdyay language and actions. I suspect similar difficulties would be faced by any effort to formalise AE in a similar manner.
I actually think in the near term it may be better and easier to focus on specifics and formalise proofs of certain theorems already derived like the law of returns. Mises does this in HA, and Rothbard produces a similar and slightly more clear proof in MES. I myself, having read both, actually produced a graphical and more mathematically illustrated proof.
Essentially, if I were to use an analogy with mathematics, the law of returns is derived via a proof by contradiction. This is similar to the way I have been able to “express” it myself. Needless to say the mainstream comments about industries with “Increasing Returns to Scale” and “Decreasing Returns to Scale” with regard to physical output seems like ill conceived nonsense that should actually violate the laws of thermodynamics. I will aim to publish what have produced soon.
To be honest, I am a little reluctant to publish it here, as I intend to do so later “officially” under my real name, and I’d like to maintain at least a semblance of separation between my presence here and my real identity.
I published an earlier, more undeveloped proof and exposition of the Law of Returns along Austrian lines using Mathematics for illustration in the following older thread. Unfortunately the links to my uploads are broken since they expired. Here’s the “latest” version in pdf format, which is the same as the file I last uploaded quite a few months ago in that thread, so it’s quite far from the final formulation I currently only have in written format. I might present it as part of a larger paper on price theory at an upcoming conference, if I can get all the damn reading and writing done in time!
If you wish, you could add me as a friend and send me a PM with your email. I’ll send you the complete version when I’ve finished typing it up.
@ I.Ryan, I’ll have to get back to you on that; it’s in one of my old notebooks that I don’t currently have with me.