Adam,
When you discuss first person and third person the first thought I have is this is a discussion on grammar, not logic.
That’s what first jumps out at me, maybe you meant it that way?
I don’t know Hayek enough. Was he Aristotelian, thus, using empricism without the positivism? Yet I think he was a friend of Popper’s.
[I know logical deductions are aprior and don’t necessarily exclude empirical facts. These are two classes that imply necessarily, possibly, or never. More interested in Hayek’s position.]
Hi Wilderness.
No, I don’t think this is simply a matter of grammar.
I think it goes to the heart of the consistency or inconsistency of the theory of action.
Compare the two passages of Hayek, first, as he writes it, in the third person, then as we could re-write it, in the first person:
“What I am arguing is that no physical properties can enter into the explicit definition of any of these classes, because the elements of these classes need not posses common physical attributes, and we do not even consciously or explicitly know which are the various physical properties of which an object would have to possess at least one to be a member of a class. The situation may be described schematically by saying that we know the objects a, b, c, …, which may be physically completely dissimilar and which we can never exhaustively enumerate, are objects of the same kind because of the attitude of X toward them all is similar. But the fact that X’s attitude toward them is similar can again be defined only by saying that he will react toward them by any one of the actions d, e, f,…, which again may be physically dissimilar and which we will not be able to enumerate exhaustively, but which we just know to “mean” the same thing.”
“What I am arguing is that no physical properties can enter into the explicit definition of any of these classes, because the elements of these classes need not posses common physical attributes, and we do not even consciously or explicitly know which are the various physical properties of which an object would have to possess at least one to be a member of a class. The situation may be described schematically by saying that we know the objects a, b, c, …, which may be physically completely dissimilar and which we can never exhaustively enumerate, are objects of the same kind because our attitude toward them all is similar. But the fact that our attitude toward them is similar can again be defined only by saying that we will react toward them by any one of the actions d, e, f,…, which again may be physically dissimilar and which we will not be able to enumerate exhaustively, but which we just know to “mean” the same thing.”
In the first passage, Hayek is discussing a phenomenon of action, but the way he does this, he creates the impression that only in theorizing about action, is it impossible to conceive or understand social objects in physical terms.
And thus he writes that: “no physical properties can enter into the explicit definition of any of these classes.” This gives the impression that the social theorist (who is interested in definitions of classes) cannot conceive social phenomena theoretically in physical terms, but yet, an actor (as opposed to a social theorist) can conceive or understand social phenomena in physical terms.
But if an actor can conceive or understand social phenomena in physical terms, why can’t a social theorist?
Why can’t a social theorist have as part of the definition of social phenomena physical attributes, but an actor can ?
By using the third person, Hayek is able to avoid confronting this question. In using the third person to describe the phenomenon he is describing, he is spared from having to follow the logic of his insight to where it would lead if he had used the first person to describe the phenomenon.
In using the third person, he creates the impression that the phenomenon he is describing is a problem inherent in theorizing about action, and not a problem inherent in action itself.
An astute student of the logic of action will realize that a profound situation is implied by Hayek’s passage re-worded in the first person. This first person account suggests a fundamental and radical subjectivity of social phenomena (meaning, that social phenomena are related to the individual subject in a radical and fundamental way). The full extent of how this is implied by Hayek’s ideas is diminished by his third person description.
Let’s take another passage:
“If we wish, we could say that all these objects are defined not in terms of their “real” properties but in terms of the opinions people hold about them. In short, in the social sciences the things are what people think they are. Money is money, a word is a word, a cosmetic is a cosmetic, if and because somebody thinks they are.” (Individualism and Economic Order, p. 60 “The Facts of The Social Sciences”)
Then change it from the third person (social theorist, observing an actor, and trying to arrive at a consistent theory of the observed actor’s action), to the first person (an actor, confronted with his acting reality, and trying to understand it for his own well-being):
“If we wish, we could say that all these [social] objects are defined not in terms of their “real” properties but in terms of the opinions we hold about them. In short, social objects are what we think they are. Money is money, a word is a word, a cosmetic is a cosmetic, if and because we think they are.”
This is not a matter of grammar. This is a matter of consistent thinking about social phenomena.
If money is money because another person thinks it’s money, then why isn’t money money because I think it’s money?
If money is money because another person thinks it’s money, then why isn’t money money because Hayek thinks it’s money?
I.e., why doesn’t the subjectivity of social phenomena apply to him, to me, and to you?
What Hayek implies by the form of his presentation, is that for the subject, as a theoretical construct (or maybe in “real life”) there exists an issue with respect to the attempt to understand social objects in physical terms. Because of this third person form of presentation, which he reverts to more than not, he leaves the impression that the scientific observer himself (and maybe we as readers) may somehow be privy to knowledge about the “objective” qualities of social objects. The third person presentation diverts our attention from the most important question, because it “places” the problem of the fundamental relationship between an actor and a social object “over there” with another actor (whether a theoretical construct of one, or a “real” one).
Hayek as actor, as person, and as scientific observer, and we as readers along with him, are buffered by the third party presentation. Money is money because “people” (those people over there) believe it is money. What about Hayek’s relationship to money? What about our relationship to money? That isn’t really treated directly…
These important questions can be seen more clearly when Hayek’s insights are phrased in the first person.
To see why this is important, consider the following idea. Hayek says that market theory is empirical, not a priori.
But if a market is a market if and because the person studying it thinks it is a market, and not in any “objective” or “physical” sense, then what can it possibly mean to study such a market “empirically” ??
Hayek did not have to face that question for two reasons:
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He phrased much of his insights in the third person. Then, the problem was not one of his own action, but a theoretical “abstract” problem removed from significance for his own action. Thus, Hayek is now free to study the “actual” or “real” market “empirically” as opposed to the market that is a market because he thinks it is a market, in which case, studying it empirically would seem problematic, while studying it by “logical analysis of his inherent knowledge of the category of action…bethinking himself and reflecting upon the structure of human action…praxeological knowledge is within him; it does not come from without”…would seem the more appropriate method of approach.
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He seems to have overlooked the significance of his own insight that social objects such as markets, language, law, property, etc., would, as social objects, be subject to the same principle as words, food, money, or weapons. That is, they cannot be conceived or described in physical terms, but only in terms of the opinions or attitudes of the acting persons concerned. If, according to Hayek’s principles, a market cannot be defined in physical terms, but only in terms of the opinions and attitudes of the actors concerned, then this makes studying the market empirically, problematic, if we understand by “empirical” something like “publicly verifiable.”
An empirical social scientist seeks verification for his theory by observing prices and their movements. For every price he observes, that price is a price because the observing scientist thinks it is a price.
Hayek didn’t have to address the apparent and fundamental problems with this procedure because of #1 and #2.
By a combination of third person presentation, and a failure to apply his own principles beyond a limited number of social objects, he maintained a safe distance from the implications of his own ideas.