Simple question: Who has, in your view, provided the best argument against praxeology and/or synthetic a priori propositions. Or to put it another way, who has made you think the hardest in order to maintain your belief in the validity of Mises’ framework?
Is the argument which you call “best” also valid? What is the formulation of the argument against the apodictic arguments of Mises?
Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. I’m not asking if there are any valid refutations of praxeology, or whether the propositions are truly apodictic, I’m simply canvassing the knowledge of the board to obtain information on who has attempted a refutation, and whether any of those refutations have made people work hard to formulate an argument against it (in favour of praxeology).
I know that there are some contemporary philosophers such as Barry Smith who hold that synthetic a priori are valid, but does anyone take the other side of the coin?
Yoiu might want to sink your teeth into this: http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2010/10/mises-praxeology-critique.html
There is no need for any deep philosophical analysis of it when it has a blatant gaping hole as its premise.
Teleological foundation of action being the action axiom is incorrect, absurd, appeals to mysticism, rejects physics as the fundamental building blocks of the world and has no place in the thought of 21st century.
What’s “the world”?
Can you explain where it goes wrong?
You made 5 claims. Could you please elaborate on each?
Xarthaz, do you feel and perceive yourself as zillions of atoms interacting by electromagnetic fields or as a conscious being?
So people never have any goals?
No, we’re just a bunch of really complex robots who act as if we have goals.
Oh wait…
Dont let feelings fool you. The world consists of nothing but standard model particles/strings/whatever the correct theory of physics turns out to be. The action axiom denies this(as per the claim of action being teleological) and that is all there is to it.
How far is your desire to refute praxeology from your frustration in dealing with us Misesians?
Well played, sir. Well played.
Methinks you’re committing the fallacy of division here. Your reasoning appears to go as follows:
- “Action” is defined as “teleological behavior”.
- According to praxeology and the action axiom, human beings act.
- According to physics, human beings are made of Standard Model particles.
- Standard Model particles do not behave teleologically.
- Therefore, Standard Model particles do not act.
- Per clauses 3, 4, and 5, human beings do not act.
- Per clause 6, praxeology and the action axiom are invalid.
Am I missing anything?
The action axiom denies this.
no it doesn’t, and even if it did, wouldn’t your naive reductionism be a more general problem?
No, that is not the idea. In fact you insult fellow forum members’ intelligence by suggesting appeals to such simplistic fallacies. Action axiom being teleological implies that it has no further explanation. Same as religous dogma like “Thunder is god’s creation”. That statement rejects possibility of any physical inquiry to thunder’s causes, aka rejects science. Hence praxeology being mysticist and stuck in the age of appeal to god.
xarthaz wrote: “There is no need for any deep philosophical analysis of it when it has a blatant gaping hole as its premise. Teleological foundation of action being the action axiom is incorrect, absurd, appeals to mysticism, rejects physics as the fundamental building blocks of the world and has no place in the thought of 21st century.”
“A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature.”
So the action axiom does not appear to be teleological since it applies to human action … not the rest of nature.
If I understand this right saying that human action should be included in the concept of teleology and then saying that teleology is false. Which is what you seem to have done is simply just taking a completely deterministic view.
The problem with this is that in a deterministic world economics is meaningless, actually all scientific pursuits are pointless as is this discussion too. It just happens to be unavoidable also.
Much can be said on this and I can’t disprove that position. What I will say is that it is utterly useless as a basis for scientific method cause we are unable to mentally accept it even if was true.So the action axiom does not appear to be teleological since it applies to human action … not the rest of nature.
If I understand this right saying that human action should be included in the concept of teleology and then saying that teleology is false. Which is what you seem to have done is simply just taking a completely deterministic view.
The problem with this is that in a deterministic world economics is meaningless, actually all scientific pursuits are pointless as is this discussion too. It just happens to be unavoidable also.
Much can be said on this and I can’t disprove that position. What I will say is that it is utterly useless as a basis for scientific method cause we are unable to mentally accept the notion that we don’t have free will and nothing productive can come out of it. Also we might as well accept that we have free will cause it make no difference that we do if we actually don’t..
So the action axiom does not appear to be teleological since it applies to human action … not the rest of nature.
If I understand this right saying that human action should be included in the concept of teleology and then saying that teleology is false. Which is what you seem to have done is simply just taking a completely deterministic view.
The problem with this is that in a deterministic world economics is meaningless, actually all scientific pursuits are pointless as is this discussion too. It just happens to be unavoidable also.
Much can be said on this and I can’t disprove that position. What I will say is that it is utterly useless as a basis for scientific method cause we are unable to mentally accept it even if was true.
There are serious challenges to praxeology, but reductive physicalism isn’t one of them.
Action axiom being teleological implies that it has no further explanation.
no it does not.
There may be a more ultimate explanation, but you are better of relying on this particular explanation than that ‘more ultimate one’ for pragmatic reasons and for the fact that this reason is not wrong.
This is Praxeology 101. read something.
Good post about the fallacy of division, Autolykos