Hi Graham
Yes, economics in the wider sense is praxeology. Economics in the narrower sense is the study of market phenomena.
The traditional and historical definition of economics is the narrow definition:
“There have never been any doubts and uncertainties about the scope of economic science. Ever since people have been eager for a systematic study of economics or political economy, all have agreed that it is the task of this branch of knowledge to investigate the market phenomena, that is, the determination of the mutual exchange ratios of the goods and services negotiated on markets, their origin in human action and their effects upon later action.” (Human Action)
Regarding Crusoe economics, I would rather not get involved in trying to untangle Rothbard’s conceptions or trying to translate Rothbard’s conceptions into Mises’s conceptions. This will probably cause more confusion than necessary. If you read the first two hundred pages of Human Action, Mises doesn’t rely much on the Crusoe construct.
In general, I think the part you’re not seeing is the difference between an “objective” description of events and the description of an event from the point of view of the individual actor. Misesian praxeology is concerned with the latter and not the former.
Objectivity (the notion of objectivity) is arrived at by taking a description of events, and omitting reference to a describer and/or his act of description.
In subjective analysis, there is no act of description without reference to an actor who describes; there is no act of observation without reference to an actor who observes, there is no act of envisioning without reference to an actor who envisions, etc…
“For it is obvious that an action has only one subjective meaning: that of the actor himself. It is X who gives subjective meaning to his action, and the only subjective meanings being given by F and S in this situation are the subjective meanings they are giving their own actions, namely, their actions of observing X.” (Schutz, The Phenomenology of the Social World)
The “method” of praxeology is methodological individualism or what may be called “individual subject analysis” in which all phenomena are conceived from the point of view of the individual actor, and no activity is depicted without an actor who performs that activity.
When I make a distinction between several various actions, this refers to the nature of the action or the content of the action as the actor himself sees it at the time of his action.
“The explanation of an action must have the same content as was in the person’s head when he performed the action or when he reasoned toward his intention to perform the action.” (Searl, Minds, Brains and Science)
I’m not referring to the point of view of an observer Y, who watches actor X performing various tasks, and I’m not referring to a later action of X (action 2) wherein X appraises or considers some previous action he performed (action 1). I’m referring to the action X performs, as X understands it, at the time he performs it.
I believe what you want to talk about is the objective point of view. I the observer watch actor X put money in the vending machine. I the observer watch actor Y take money out of the vending machine. Now, I omit reference to my acts of observation. This leaves:
Actor X put money in the vending machine, actor Y took money out of the vending machine. (an objective event)
You want to ask: how does praxeology deal with this event, a description of events from the point of view of an observer in which reference to the observer and his act of observation is omitted.
I want to deal only with what was in the mind of the actor himself (his intention or purpose) at the time he performed the action.
I want to deal with subjective data not objective data.
I think this is the difference.
Adam
(“It is important to remember that the so-called “data,” from which we set out in this sort of analysis, are…all facts given to the person in question, the things as they are known to (or believed by) him to exist, and not, strictly speaking, objective facts. It is only because of this that the propositions we deduce are necessarily a priori valid and that we preserve the consistency of the argument.” Hayek, “Economics and Knowledge”)