And the basis for economics is explaining human behavior [ in a certain sphere ] or explaining what means to pursue to get to our ends. So I think there will always be such an element of want. I see this a great deal in the history community, attempts at objectivity. I don’t think it achievable but being unable to achieve it does not mean one cannot find truth or speak truth.
If statements are hypothesis ie. assumptions, opinions. Austrian economics includes a prior ie. principles, certainities. Could you phrase this another way? Austrian economics doesn’t exclude hypothesis but doesn’t exclude a prior either. That’s why it’s considered rational.
Laughing Man:
In my opinion, you have inadvertently (or perhaps intentionally) stated the foundational basis of praxeology. Consider this from Mises:
“The starting point of praxeology is a self-evident truth, the cognition of action, that is, the cognition of the fact that there is such a thing as consciously aiming at ends.” (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p.5)
I consider “aiming at ends” and “wanting” identical in the science of human action. So I read your #1 as saying the same thing as Mises: There will always be an element of want. In my opinion, this is exactly the point Mises was trying to make. Therefore, the concept of wanting—since there will always be an element of want—is the foundational concept of praxeology. I.e., the founding concept or phenomenon from which other deductions are made.
Mises says this: It is a self-evident truth that there is action (aiming at ends, wanting, striving, trying to, etc…)
You say this: Just because there will always be wanting does not mean we cannot find truth.
I say this: In your saying there will always be wanting, you have uncovered a self-evident truth.
This is and was Mises’s basis for the foundation of praxeology.
Aristotle discusses human action and desire, etc… too. That’s an old idea. Mises wasn’t stating anything new here. Not saying you didn’t know this… now my question that I had asked you.
What? Why?
I really do not understand what you are trying to say, there. Phrase what what other way? What does “rational” mean?
I’m not going to define “if” for you. You defined the whole statement yourself. You said if X then Y, correct? So do X and get Y? But to know how to cause X and what Y is relies upon facts. I wasn’t disagreeing with you here.
You stated if X, Y is what economics does. Obviously not all economics deal in “if’s”. Austrian economics for one involves principles.
on rational
A principle constitutes the connection between the “X” and the “Y” in the statement “if X, Y”. The connective “if” only specifies that the principle exists, not what the principle is.
For clarification, the rationality of Austrian economics is that ‘if-statements’ are used but principles too. Thus facts and propositions are important for the whole theory (any theory).
I should have mentioned, though, that I meant that each proposition of applied economics is an if-statement. For “normative” questions and the propositions of political ideologies involve applied economics, not just pure economics.
(I am not sure whether I am correct in the claim of the first sentence of this post, though.)
“If the “given situation” conforms to a certain pattern, certain other features must also be present, for their presence is “deducible” from the pattern originally postulated. The analytic method is simply a way of discovering the necessary consequences of complex collocations of facts—consequences whose counterpart in reality is not so immediately discernible as the counterpart of the original postulates. It is an instrument for “shaking out” all the implications of given suppositions. Granted the correspondence of its original assumptions and the facts, its conclusions are inevitable and inescapable.” (bold and italics added)
(Lionel Robbins: An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, p. 121-122)
An explanation of an “if” statement of the type I. Ryan is referring to.
It is important to note that there is a distinction to be made between “consequences” which connote temporal sequence, and “co-presences” which do not.
In Mengerian exact theoretical social science, the idea of co-presence (coexistence) plays a significant role. It is common for Menger to write about “the laws of the coexistence and of the succession of phenomena” or “on the basis of the laws of the coexistence and of the succession of phenomena.”
So we can’t forget that exact laws do not have to mean temporal succession—they can refer to the necessary “co-presence” or coexistence of phenomena. The law of marginal utility is one such law.
When we aim for a specific state of affairs, and we say that by exact “if-then” law, some other thing must come with this state of affairs, this other thing need not be conceived of as following temporally the original state aimed at. We can conceive the “other thing” as necessarily co-present with the original thing we aim for.
All action is purposeful behavior [:P]
Very well put. Rothbard and all this nonsense about good/evil, proper/rogue, and “one and true law/ethics/morality” reeks of religious fundamentalism. Allegations that “true” intellect MUST inevitably “discover” this “natural law” (which, btw, is sitting pretty in REALITY waiting to be discovered by REASON), are nothing but a clumsy re-hash of the centuries old religious fundamentalism’s claim that “true” love of God MUST inevitably “discover” some “God’s Law” (sitting there to be discovered by true believers). Basing the viability of anarcho-capitalism on this nonsense, would doom it to failure before it ever even takes off.
Z.
I would recommend you read more works by Aristotle. Natural law and its discovery isn’t necessarily based on religion. Rothbard makes mention of this in the opening of Ethics of Liberty and Rothbard himself wasn’t really a theist. What are we to base anarcho-capitalism on?
Z, please stop performing contradictions.
k, thanx, bye..
Logic, epistemology… common sense. They really aren’t that bad.
yes, logic and epistemology, and the fact that humans act entail private property ethics
I read the bit where you say that logic and epistemology aren’t all that something, but i’m not sure what you are saying that they are not. they really aren’t that what?
z1235, i know you are basically angry. I obviously can’t say that for sure, but from most of your recent posts my intuition is taking a more than wild stab at it. You haven’t been able to argue accept most recently in favor of your explicit consent that ‘initiating physical aggression is an axiom’ in that pin stand thread, which is unfortunate that you (A) would pervert what an axiom is (B) make humans out to be pure violence (C) argue for initiating coercion.
I ask why you attack my or anybody’s free-will?
The last one is debatable, luckily the first two are more than enough.
It was sarcasm. Logic and epistemology are a great base for AC.
Do you mean AE [ Austrian economics ]?
You’d be interested in Xeer law