The hypothetico-deductive methodology involves formulating hypotheses to ‘test’ either to confirm or disconfirm them, and from there on establish either the veracity or falsity of premises they were based upon. I.e. it moves from hypotheticals to discover unknowns. This is the very opposite of taking well-known empirical truths (perhaps even necessary truths) combined with axioms and then proceeding from them deductively to spin out their consequences. The one moves from premises to conclusions, the other hypothetically formulates the conclusions in a sense to find the premises, as it were.
The language here could be deceptive for there is no such thing as a true “confirmation” (i.e. verification) of a theory in the hypothetico-deductive model, evidence can only corroborate one’s thesis.
I found Long’s “Anti-Psychologism” paper very enlightening.
I don’t really understand how a priori would be applicable in the natural sciences at all as the video seems to indicate.
Normally one would make an observation (could be a lab accident or similar in many cases), formulate a hypothesis and then re-test the hypothesis.
I am not sure one could formulate a hypothesis in natural sciences without basing the hypothesis on prior empirical knowledge.
Can someone explain what he means with using a priori to prepare the lab work?
To use a principle (aprior) and a hypothesis can happen inclusively. Aprior known truths might have led me to the lab. And then when doing the lab work that is based on a hypothesis that are not the principles but the principles have lead me this far. Aprior deductions can provide what is impossible so now I’m in the lab trying what seems to be possible (to do such would decrease wasting time, energy). And what is possible isn’t universal aprior so using a hypothesis (what is possible) is experimenting out of a potential of possibilities they may be limited or not.
edit: I’m also keeping in mind all those books Jon typed out above, and I haven’t read one of those, so, there’s no mistaking that I’m not able to delve into this as much as it deserves.
Still doesn’t explain where this a priori knowledge in natural sciences would come from. It doesn’t seem to me that such a thing could exist.
Not even for the most basic stuff. We could easily conclude that an object can exist only in one place in time … unfortunately that is probably false.
We have already proven that particles can exist in multiple places in space at the same time and there are indications that effect can precede cause in quantum physics.
This could make you question even the most basic a priori statements about physics, such as that an object that is red all over can not be green all over at the same time. I am not sure how small particles can reflect light but if they are small enough it could be probable that they exist in two places at the same time and reflect two different colour. Who knows, there are sorts of crazy shit going on…
The ancient Egyptians probably thought that the “Thunderer of the Nile, and protectors of all other fish.” (that would be electricity) was as impossible to grab and move across continents as we believe it impossible that an object can have two colours at once.
We can extrapolate more or less sensible hypothesis from previous empirical data, but I don’t see how we can determine anything with certainty in natural sciences.
Principles are aprior. What is aprior is deducted from facts that were inducted. There are many principles within the natural sciences. They are certain. Even the uncertainity principle is understood as a principle.
To conflate quantum physics principles/theories with biological principles/theories metaphysically is possible, but I don’t know if that bridge has been crossed in science today. I don’t have the knowledge of a scientist in any particular field and quantum physics is a very complicated field that rationally I’m not going to make the attempt to suggest I know in the slightest the totally of either field, especially since my reading in quantum physics have been layman books only and my limits in biology are some courses at the university level. These different fields in the natural sciences may overlap. That is probably a challenge to the best of them, and I’m not of the best of them.
good luck with your pursuit of wisdom
good day sir 
No Quantum Mechanics does not contradict causality, the “paradoxes” with its interpretation in these types of it result from misunderstanding the theory with classical (physics) intuition, thereby requiring everything to be visualised in particles. Rather the “wavefunction”, or state vector is revealed as the more fundamental description with which objects like photons and electrons can be described. Only when these phenomena are constrained under special circumstances do they exhibit either wave or particle behaviour, really they are neither.
The problem with the classical empiricism, of which Einstein was influenced by, is not realising itself how much it was assuming a priori about reality, and hence becoming stumped by QM. Bohr’s view was “realist”, since he realised Physics does not describe the universe, only what we can say about it , since it is limited and operates under a framework of concepts limited by the cognition and logical framework of the human mind, and the categories it cannot operate at variance with.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, this is the reason I find a lot of the methodological discussions around here really unsatisfactory. You can make almost any theory a priori by picking your axioms and defining terms in a certain way. Indeed, if you get two contradictory theories then the only way to decide between them is to examine how closely your starting points fit the real world. The major disagreements between Austrians and other economists doesn’t concern the fact that humans act but, amongst other things, their cognitive abilities.
I think Mises major point was important, he followed Weber in saying that any attempt to look at history without some theory in the name of science is naive, all history is looked at through the lens of some theory, so to speak. But at the same time, if your theory is consistently having difficulty explaining the facts, it needs revising. In other words, Mises was correct in drawing a distinction between theory and history but wrong in dichotomizing them.
As a final note, not only is a lot of stress on a priorism unwarranted, it’s wrong. All Austrian economics, or good Austrian economics at least, should pay a lot of attention to institutional context.
Where can I read the text of several prominent and vigorous debates between Austrians and non-Austrians over the issues of man’s cognitive abilities?
The scientific particulars are not that important. The point is that there seems to be a whole bunch of basic stuff that is counter-intuitive. Especially with very advanced technology, as in the example with the ancient Egyptians.
That may be true but it still doesn’t make these assumptions knowledge. We can use reason to figure out what we think is more or less likely but that is not knowledge either.
It is pretty useful though, I mean it would have been complete lunacy for the ancient Egyptions to attempt to build a power-line even though they observed something that was electricity. They need to accumulate a lot of other knowledge first.
Empiricism doesn’t really generate knowledge about basic principles either under this definition so maybe it is just a matter of you defining knowledge more loosely?
The difference however is that I fail to see any logical bridge between mind and reality, which we have in economics, in natural sciences. And basically we can only actually know stuff about our own mind and choices in the first place, everything else is open to error.
Are you a sollipsist?
A Freudian slip perhaps?[:P]
I. Ryan:
My understanding of the methodological situation is the following:
One can have an approach wherein one begins with concepts that are spatio-temporal in nature. This may happen if we make, for example, one of our founding concepts the distinction between “internal thoughts” and an “external world of events.” When we do this, we have already introduced the idea of “location.” (internal versus external)
As opposed to this conception, one can begin one’s reasoning from what Mises would call the category of action. The category of action does not refer to a spatio-temporal location. The founding concept is a state that exists for the actor, and a want for a state different than the state currently present for the actor.
Thus, we can begin with 1) a conception of two “states”: the state over here, versus the state over there (spatio-temporal location).
Or, we can begin with 2) a conception of a state and a want.
These two foundations are not identical. AE is #2, natural science is #1.
The problem is that it is difficult to conceive of a “want” that is not a “state.” If we conceive the “want” as a kind of “state” (as a sub-class of the general class of states), then we are back at #1.
That is why praxeology is difficult.
But I interpret the statement: “AE does not use […] empiricism in its methodological approach…” to refer to the situation just described.
No, and what has that got to do with this?
I never said we can’t have knowledge, but the elevation of knowledge of specific events to knowledge of general principles is highly problematic.
Knowledge and believes about physical laws and principles are wrong all the time and there appears to be a fundamental difference between this type of “knowing” and the type of knowledge that is about specific experiences, choices we have made, aims we have and so forth.
Where the internal knowledge is much more reliable. The logical bridge that between mind and reality in social sciences combined with the extreme difficulty in observing such a complex system is what makes a priori more reliable then post priori in social sciences.
For natural sciences neither of this is true which makes me not all convinced that a priori is all that reliable in natural sciences.
Where?
Maybe I spelled something wrong and don’t see it cause this is a foreign language. Or you are taking this out of context just as it seems one would have to do with the previous statement also to arrive at your solipsist question. It helps if you take into account what I have written in at least 1 or 2 posts back…
I think this might’ve been the Freudian slip askebabs was refering to, although I’m not too sure what you let slip from the sub-conscious.
In any event, you’ve been making some good points thus far, but let me warn you, when you challenge an idealouge, when you reach out to touch their absolute “truths” you are opening the floodgates, especially if you lack language proficiency for english, because semantics can (and will) be used to disprove your stance.
It’s sort of like agreeing to an debate on the O’Reilly factor, or the Sean Hannity show.
Yeah, the reference may be somewhat unclear here.
I wrote in my previous post: “The ancient Egyptians probably thought that the “Thunderer of the Nile, and protectors of all other fish.” (that would be electricity) was as impossible to grab and move across continents as we believe it impossible that an object can have two colours at once.”
So I meant relatively speaking advanced technology, like I illustrated in the example I previously posted.
Lol, yeah.
Damned social scientists messin’ with folks like lab rats. I say treatin’ folks like guinea pigs is sadistic.
You quoted me talking about QM as yourself.
Don’t worry, I wasn’t criticising your langauge, just a bit of a joke.
Opps, damn tags. Sorry about that.
abskebabs:
Great thoughts.
"The observation itself changes the probability function discontinuously; it selects of all possible events the actual one that has taken place. Since through the observation our knowledge of the system has changed discontinuously, its mathematical representation also has undergone the discontinuous change and we speak of a “quantum jump.”
“Therefore, the transition from the “possible” to the “actual” takes place during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens in the atomic event, we have to realize that the word “happens” can apply only to the observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations.”
“In classical physics science started from the belief—or should one say from the illusion?—that we could describe the world or at least large parts of the world without any reference to ourselves.”
“It may be said that classical physics is just that idealization in which we can speak about parts of the world without any reference to ourselves. Its success has led to the general idea of an objective description of the world. Objectivity has become the first criterion for the value of any scientific result.”
“Quantum theory does not allow a completely objective description of nature.”
(Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy)