Im in a discussion about Austrian economics in another forum and I’ve been given a challenge I’ve never encountered before.
The whole thread is here: http://www.politics.ie/economy/54711-austrian-economics-rte-2.html
The last post:
Me:
I think the axiom would somehow not satisfy the principle of non-contradiction which is the cornerstone of logic. Or it would fail another logical test. So Mises’ first praxeological axiom is “humans act”. If you attempt to disprove this axiom you are acting, and therefore attempting a performative contradiction.
The best essay on the Austrian approach to economics, as well as why empiricism-positivism fails into a tissue of nonsense is Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method.
Opponent:
OK, for a given definition of human and “act” it seems reasonable, but a bit of a tautology.
Any other axioms, I can’t find them on t-internet.
Also, my pen acts. Try disprove that.
I presume he means “disprove that by not resorting to observations”. Where do I go from here?
You don’t need to disprove it, in terms of praxeology it’s inconsequential.
How so? Can you elaborate?
Well, if he wants to elaborate upon that statement and construct an edifice of theory on top of it, he can. Of course, nobody will care.
But might he not claim that’s exactly what Mises did?
Yes, but he’ll have a lot harder time denying that humans act than you will doing the same for pens.
humans act.
well, dead ones don’t, so its ‘living humans act’.
and we dont count instinctual behavioural quirks, only intentioned actions. so
its maybe … ‘living humans who engage their will in the performance of acts after having decided on employing particular means to acheiving their subjective ends, and who have been able to do this ‘deciding’ by virtue of the application of their rational faculty , act’
How do you know that you act, or how do I know that I act? A person has (some) direct experience of his own inner thought processes and the fact of his awareness, so he really does know that he acts. (The performative contradiction argument looks cool, but it has no more logical strength than saying “here is an action, therefore humans act”). However, no one has direct experience of other people’s thoughts or feelings, the fact that other people act is of lesser certainty than that of one’s own action. One can apply the same analysis to the pen that one uses to determine how he knows how other people act.
Another argument brought up is: “I act, but other humans do not”.
but then why study economicsat all? if there are not economic actors acting, what fruits will your knowledge of ‘interactions’ hope to bear? there cant conceivably be economics without actors
The fails the a priori of argumentation. Why would you argue with other humans that other humans cannot argue?
Response: You’re an idiot. Try to disprove that.
But as for a less trollish response, so what? If it does act it’s subject to the laws of praxeology (how is man acts a “tautology”? do these hicks even know what a tautology is? Reductions/explanations are NOT tautologies! Neither are analyses.) Knowing that I act is a matter of introspection that cannot be coherently denied. Knowing that another acts is a matter of thymology, i.e. of seeing where this truth is applicable. I know what it is like to be a sentient, acting being; I have no idea what it is like to be a pen. If pens do act, then the laws of economics apply to them. We have no thymological evidence to indicate that they do, so the possibility is dismissed. Does he think this is a difficult question? This is just really the same question of whether other humans have minds. We can’t know with certainty but absent any evidence to the contrary, why assume they do not? Long’s book on Mises and Wittgenstein examines all these questions in depth. Your interlocutor is an amateur.
“But this could all be an internal dialogue / dream”
And for the purposes of a science such questions of pure philosophical masturbation are of no interest.
It wasn’t. He argued it with other humans, meaning that he contradicted himself in doing so.
tell him that he is a most masterful philospher, a true adept at the skeptical method. encourage him to revel in his solipsistic musings, and invite him to come back to the debate when he wants to talk about Economics.