Describing Austrian methodology

Miscellaneous General
1

A big enough hurdle for me is:

if I’m talking to a ‘right’-winger, and mention anti-corporatist/anti-war. Brain shutdown.

If I’m talking to a ‘left’-winger, and mention pro-capitalism/anti-welfare. Brain shut-down.

I usually just keep hammering in what we agree on, and continually dodge other issues. Eventually, they’ll get curious and force me to answer. This is good, being on the side of “I don’t want to tell you, but alright” gives a lot more leeway than “Sit down and let me proselytize”.

I feel I’ve become fairly good at hammering down our similarities. Just, in general working on the similarities and realizing what you and the person you’re talking to agree on and using that as a foundation for future discussion is an Ace Technique.

People from the ‘right’ are in my opinion a lot easier to reach. The jump from recognizing how the market provides liberty, and the arguments of liberty as a cornerstone aren’t that hard to set.

As for people from the ‘left’, eventually I have to talk about serious economics…

From here there are three possible directions:

-I am honest about methodological differences from the start. However, the moment someone hears the Austrian position w.r.t. correlation, “YOU ARE AGAINST SCIENCE. BRAIN SHUT-DOWN AND/OR LAUGHTER.” (most often it is laughter, and it is humiliating. I have had allusions to magical pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters made to me at around this point.)

-I am dishonest and play their argument from effect game. This never works. We both end up cherry-picking data. (Most of the time Somalia is mentioned and I am laughed at yet again for sticking to my guns.)

-I am actually heard out to completion. To date, this has happened once.

Dammit. It’s hard enough to say with a straight face, “Yes, I’m not a patriot”/“Yes, I’d abolish food stamps” without people going absolutely berserk (actually, to be honest, when I say “I’m not a patriot” to someone’s face, the majority I talk to have respect for me being able to say that, which is somewhat surprising). Attacking the sacred cow of positivism is something I’m coming here for some advice on.

I feel like my situation is not in a vacuum either. A lot of the more honest criticism to the Austrian school relates to methodology (mainly because you have to actually read some of the material to understand that there even is a methodological difference). Also, a lot of these criticisms have been appearing more and more often lately, mainly with the tag, “ISN’T SCIENTIFIC. EVERYONE MOVE ON. IGNORE. JUST A BUNCH OF IRRATIONAL PEOPLE WITH NO CONDITION OF FALSIFICATION, THERE’S NO WAY WE CAN CONVINCE THEM OR REACH COMMON GROUND.”

Argh.

So, does anyone have any ideas to get over the century long methodenstreit already?

2

On Positivism, you should of course point out that its methodology is itself unfalsifiable, and so that if they believe it is true, they themselves support the existence of unfalsfiable truths. For more on this I suggest Hoppe, Economic Science and the Austrian Method (available on mises.org), cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiXcO3pcR8I

As for the people shutting off once you attack their golden calves, perhaps show how the points about which they agreed with you have the same basis as the points on which they disagree with you, i.e. make them hold all points to the same standards. It’s also good to prepare answers to common objections, e.g. the poor, defence, monopolies etc.

EDIT: Also, ask them to prove that humans cannot act. This will invariably result in a performative contradiction, and they will then have proved the basis of Austrian economics (but I doubt they could realise it even if you explained it to them).

3

If someone thinks that the methodology of the Austrian school is suspect, you should briefly explain why it makes sense.

  1. Different kinds of logic are used in the scientific method, and each have their place. Induction for noticing patterns. Deduction for describing why something occurs. Experiments merely test to see if the premises or argument in the deduction are true and valid.

  2. No matter the science, all laws (theories or w/e you want to call them) are true before being discovered. Whether or not we are aware of them is irrelevant to their truth. The scientific method is just a way for discovering these truths.

  3. Unlike physics, it is impossible (or unbelievably difficult) to actually set up an experiment in economics. Testing a hypothesis is impossible without an experiment. So, the only way to discover truth, if verifying and induction are out, is through deduction. That is the Austrian method.

  4. Next be ready to address statistics. Statistics are just historical data. They describe the past. They do not describe why something happened. Again, no experiment can be set up with an economy. There are just too many variables. So, even having the statistics, very little meaning can be inferred from them. This reminds me of the Drake Equation - even assuming the equation is good, the equation only has variables and they are all unknown!

  5. I suggest you then try spend your time convincing them of the virtues of deduction. Most people can understand why deduction makes sense just as they see how induction makes sense. An example I like is the rising of the sun. Through observation, we see that the sun rose yesterday and the day before yesterday etc. With inductive reasoning, we could conclude that the sun will rise tomorrow and we would be right. This does not explain why the sun rises. For that, we would need deductive reasoning. Astronomers can predict the location of the planets and the sun with incredible accuracy using the their knowledge of physics. They do not guess where the planets will be, they deduce their locations.

If someone cannot understand the use of deduction, they are either a moron or intentionally stupid. It’s one thing to question someone’s premises, arguments, or conclusions, but it is something entirely different to deny deduction altogether.

So, if someone dismisses the Austrian method, find out if it’s because that person dismisses logic or if he does not believe the premises, arguments, or conclusions are true and valid. From there you can decide if the argument is worth your time and if it’s possible to educate the person in the Austrian school.

4

Deduction > induction. Since deduction concerns conclusions that necessarily follow from premises, the entire concept of falsifiability doesn’t apply to it. Falsifiability only applies to induction, because there one never knows the full set of premises (i.e. observations/evidence).