My Summaries of the Required Readings for Mises University

[Daniel_J_Sanchez]

@Koen Swinkels

The Philosophical origins of Austrian Economics, David Gordon

Thanks Koen,

I have a question about this one, for you or anybody else who could answer.

Gordon says,

“Logical positivism (Carnap, Karl Menger, Schlick, Neurath, etc.) attacked synthetic a priori and deductivism.”

Menger was a positivist? That doesn’t seem right. Also he was against deductivism? His method seemed highly deductive, as I wrote in my post Economic character of higher order goods and the deductive method of Menger.

Also Gordon says that methodological individualism stems from Aristotle. But he also says that Mises was not influenced by Aristotle. That doesn’t seem to follow since, in Human Action, Mises explicitly promotes methodological individualism. Also the entire teleological approach of praxeology seems eminently Aristotelean.

Can someone resolve these cognitive dissonances for me?

Thanks.

[hayekianxyz]

Karl Menger, the mathematician was the son of Carl Menger the Austrian economist and teacher of Bohm Bawerk.

[Daniel_J_Sanchez]

Thanks Giles.

I thought the “K” was a typo.

[hayekianxyz]

@Daniel J. Sanchez

Thanks Giles.

I thought the “K” was a typo.

Lol, if it’s from the Gordon paper, then it’d be amusing, since Gordon himself chastised somebody for calling the economist Karl Menger.

[hayekianxyz]

@Daniel J. Sanchez

Thanks Giles.

I thought the “K” was a typo.

Lol, if it’s from the Gordon paper, then it’d be amusing, since Gordon himself chastised somebody for calling the economist Karl Menger.

[Conrad]

@Daniel J. Sanchez

@Koen Swinkels

The Philosophical origins of Austrian Economics, David Gordon

Thanks Koen,

I have a question about this one, for you or anybody else who could answer.

Gordon says,

“Logical positivism (Carnap, Karl Menger, Schlick, Neurath, etc.) attacked synthetic a priori and deductivism.”

Menger was a positivist? That doesn’t seem right. Also he was against deductivism? His method seemed highly deductive, as I wrote in my post Economic character of higher order goods and the deductive method of Menger.

yeah, that’s Karl, not Carl.

Also Gordon says that methodological individualism stems from Aristotle. But he also says that Mises was not influenced by Aristotle. That doesn’t seem to follow since, in Human Action, Mises explicitly promotes methodological individualism.

but ideas around methodological individualism also occurred in Locke and Bentham, and many others. Schumpeter appears to have introduced the term itself, and since appr. the 1930s Austrians like Hayek, Machlup, and Mises started to use the term to apply to their own methodology (Schumpeter’s use of the term was a bit different) Just sayin’ that the influence need not have occured directly or even indirectly from Aristotle.

Check “Meanings of Methodological Individualism” by Hodgson (the above paragraph is based on that article)

[jtucker]

Fantastic work. thank you

[hayekianxyz]

I think this should be pinned for all to post summaries of Austrian works, but great work to the OP.

Off topic: are you the same Koen Swinkels that Molyneux is so fond of?

[Harry_Felker]

Wow… that is a bit of work…

Thanks for posting this, I have already read a couple, it is helping a lot with my understanding…

[Conrad]

@GilesStratton

I think this should be pinned for all to post summaries of Austrian works, but great work to the OP.

thanks!

Off topic: are you the same Koen Swinkels that Molyneux is so fond of?

Yeah, that’s me. Our BFF badges were taken away some years ago.