My question was how do you decide which is correct?
You will revel in your success all the more when you discover this without assistance (if you do). good luck!
My best guess is hayekianxyz. I don’t remember him being here very long and he is a free banker.
The argument that is sound is the correct argument.
hayekianxyz has been around since before Giles’s departure, IIRC. I’m pretty sure you misinterpreted what scineram said.
You’re missing the point I’m trying to make here. Obviously, there will be inconsistencies and logical errors in any chain of reasoning, it’s naive to assume that we could figure out the entirety of economics by following on from the action axiom with our limited faculties.
But the more important point is this, depending on the axioms you choose to begin with you’ll end up in different places, even if you don’t make any logical errors. Of course, it’s true Mises did choose to begin from a reasonable starting place, human action, but others have decided to start from equally valid starting places such as reproduction. The difference is that Mises came up with economic theory that extolled the virtues of the market whereas Hollis & Nell came up with an a priori theory of economics that was Sraffian. Clearly, these two can’t both be true, so, what now?
See Caldwell’s discussion of a priorism in Beyond Positivism for an elaboration.
You can’t have history without theory. But that doesn’t imply that some theories don’t do a better job of describing the data than others. You’re really kidding yourself if you don’t think that economics, Austrian or otherwise, revise their theory when it’s clearly at odds with the facts.
I’ve explained in a separate post that such a statement is a category error. To answer your first point here, of course some theories do a better job than others. The ones that are correct allow one to draw true conclusions from the data, while false theories do the opposite. That’s why you want true axioms, not false ones.
Well, how do you choose between two true axioms?
That’s why theory evolves. Someone notices an error in the chain of reasoning and then proceeds to fix and modify that chain of reasoning. That’s how the Austrian school had evolved from Menger to modern times.
If you don’t make any logical errors, then your two arguments cannot be contradictory. If they are, then you made logical errors. That or all forms of knowledge are unattainable.
Search for errors in logical reasoning. Go.
Actually Hollis didn’t really do much of anything re the economics, Nell did, and reading the critical article on the Mises website would indicate how one would criticise Nell’s contributions (because reproduction is a species of action, and is not in anyway fundamental; an axiom in the sense being used here is a fundament), so in future Giles do make sure you’ve read the stuff before posing questions like these…
You don’t, there can’t exist two true contradictory axioms.
Bruce Caldwell answers this point in the work I referenced, so in future Jon do make sure you’ve read the stuff before posing questions like these… All kidding aside, reproduction is necessary for action, so in that sense I’m not sure how fundamental action is. And yes, you’re correct, Nell was responsible for the economics, I should have clarified this.
I take it you mean Lavoie’s critique?
You’re correct, but this doesn’t matter for what I’m saying. The point I was trying to make is that depending on where you begin you will end up with different conclusions. How does one choose between these conclusions without reference to the empirical world?
By the way, two more general points:
- As a description of how economics is practised, Misesian a priorism is way off,
- Even if it were correct, it wouldn’t get you as far as most people here think it would.
By rechecking the premises, only one can be a priori true.
Reproduction of goods is a species of action… and yes.
Testing end experiments?
I don’t know what you mean, but to answer what you might be asking, by thinking and figuring out what mistake he made.
Well it depends how you view it- clearly, action is logically prior to reproduction since it is merely a type of action but it would seem that reproduction is temporally prior to action- that of coming into being. This raises the interesting conclusion that the chicken must certainly come before the egg as not to succumb to the regressus ad infinitum fallacy which the idea of reproduction being logically basic does since it does not explain the current action of present existence.
Well since action cannot be denied by self refutation then it’s a prior true however you still have the problem of application of the axiom. Which brings me onto the whether the analytic/ synthetic (I think that’s the right words) dichotomy holds true. If not you can make general empirical claims and hold them as a priori such as the dis-utility of labour.
So your correct in one sense that we need reference to the empirical world but it doesn’t preclude the pure a priorism of action or a general rationalist methodology. It would seem most efficacious to start with pure a priori statements with as few empirical postulates as possible and go from there which is how Austrian economics has operated since Mises. It would be stupid to empirically test the dis-utility of labour and similar statements.
To be clear, they mean reproduction of goods. If it were biological reproduction the idea of it as an axiom would be truly idiotic, as it would not even meet the criteria of serving as an a priori truth.
Sorry about that. I read it a long time ago. Btw when they mean reproduction does that include initial production or merely a continuous cycle?
Latter, continuous production. I’m rather surprised you guys thought they meant biological reproduction. [:S]