This is a big part of why people find AE to be a kind of empty doctrine, because it doesn’t seem to say anything particular so much as simply insist on very general formalities. People find it strange when one rules out the analysis of particulars and just takes for granted a certain meaning and validity of its own basic concepts.
just to add, the Molyneux video debunks the central point of praxeology, the claim that action and preference is a teleological foundation incapable of being further analyzed. When in the test, in reality, the “teleological given” was succesfully achieved and predicted by neural stimulation
FYP.
I’m not trying to be rude. What I wrote, I believe to be literally true. Major exception: praxeology doesn’t assume the validity of its tenets. Believe it or not, there’s a logically rigorous justification for them.
Wow. That’s pretty cool. Pretty crazy if accurate. But, (a) It’s not a full blown theory of human behavior; and (b) It’s a LONG way off from being such…These guys are only testing motor neurons vis-a’-vis our limbs and apendages—not idea formation or ratiocination. Still, really interesting.
Excellent Post. It seems like you’re analogy is similar to one I described in the past, but far more developed.
Without explaining where to observe wanting and believing, praxeology would just be a bunch of arbitrary, formal relationships between propositions. It isn’t an accident, that, when somebody asks what wanting or believing even are, they usually get the response that trying to deny trying is still trying, or that not believing that believing doesn’t exist is still believing, which means that denying them would be a “performative contradiction” or whatever. The fact that trying to deny trying is still trying, and that believing that believing doesn’t exist is still believing, are formal relationships between propositions, which, as I have said, are the only province of praxeology. Just like it isn’t surprising that mathematicians try to use mathematics to solve everything, it isn’t surprising that praxeologists try to use praxeology to answer the question. If you have a hammer, the old saying goes, then everything looks like a nail. But the questioner is usually just left totally baffled: Are you saying that everything is trying, or that is everything believing? Can anything happen without being one of those? No, trying and believing are specific things which you simply have to do to question them. But what are they? Where can I find them?
Praxeology pretends to be “meaningful at every step”. It doesn’t want to be just an arbitrary piece of mathematics. It says that it is meaningful. But, without thymology, it really is just an arbitrary piece of mathematics: It would just be a bunch of formal, arbitrary relationships between propositions. So, the way that praxeology stays meaningful is simple: It uses folk thymology, our common-sense meanings for the terms “desire”, “belief”, and so on. But this isn’t scientific, and tends to sound like mysticism to most people. The small minority of people who stay with praxeology might simply be those whose common sense meanings for those terms work well with it. Notice that people who tend to have a “psychological” mindset, where they tend to look for neurons firing and so on for behavior, tend to find praxeology to be totally empty and out-dated. This isn’t an accident; and we shouldn’t dismiss these people as just another bunch of jerks.
What does it mean to be “on the theoretical level” or to be “formal”?
It would be pretty charitable to just call it “unpersuasive”. I would go further, and call it deficient.
It doesn’t debunk anything. Praxeological laws only rely on the existence of preference. To explain how something works and to disprove its existence are very different things.
Of course, methodological dualism and the application of praxeological methods rather than tracing human action completely and deterministically from its external, physical impulses is a methodological compromise based on our incomplete knowledge of this sphere of causal relations as Mises repeatedly emphasizes (additionally however, we now have good reasons to now doubt the plausibillity of any complete deterministic causal theory of action or economics).
I often get the impression that the people posing as behavioural or purely empirical economists actually think that the formal laws of praxeology are themselves up for testing, rather than being neccesary consequences apodictically of certain conditions of action. It’s a funny thing perhaps slightly peculiar to the social sciences, I mean generally in one’s empirical enquiries one does not test using one’s methods of inference the logical statements upon which your enquiry is based, these are recognised to be of a different sphere. Similarly physicists don’t set out to refute 2+2=4, when they find objects that don’t conform to certain rules, it is rather that this affects their categorisation.
Hence, (empirical) science is not a “free for all” of inductive inference, but relies already in its structure on elements of aprioristic disciplines, which necessarily curbs its freedom of enquiry from being able to support certain propositions. This it seems to me, should apply equally well to economic science, vis a vis for instance the lack of economic calculation due to lack of prices for factors of production, or the law of returns etc.
@askebabs
Very good point.
@IRyan
Ha. I see (better) where you’re coming from now. Thanks.
Praxeology is like mathematics: a bunch of formal relationships. These aren’t “arbitrary” relationships though. Therefore, people don’t question the truth of mathematics. Why should they question the formal relationships of praxeology? Because their truth—to use Hoppe’s conception—isn’t psychologically evident?
Math, and praxeology, are formal because they follow the rules of deductive logic. Calling something “self-evident”, as praxeology claims of human action, isn’t an arbitrary choice. It is a necessary choice based on the logical categories of our minds, in relation to the external world. If a questioner of praxeology can’t see these necessary relationships for himself, this is not the failure of praxeology.
Moreover, why should praxeology need to go further than the logical necessities dictated by our own reason? To do so is to question the validity of these logical necessities, in terms of their truth value, is it not? I don’t see a “necessary” reason for doing so.
In other words, if the conclusions one reaches using deduction can’t be relied upon as accurately describing reality, what possibly can be?
But, clearly you have reasons for your view. I apologize, but I don’t understand what they are.
EDIT:
logically necessary
Deficient in what way exactly? I take it that you mean deficient epistemologically? If so, I strongly disagree.
@IRyan
Sure it can. Wanting is defined as either (1) having an end in mind; or (2) preferring and therefore choosing one thing vs. another thing.
Believing (i.e. truth) is defined as that which can be deduced from our understanding of the regularity of cause and effect in the external world.
What you’re looking for is a justification for the proposition that (1) actors have ends; (2) actors choose according to preference; and (3) why should truth be defined as such?
I think the answers to all three return us directly to our hard-wired understanding of the regularity of cause and effect. We are hard-wired to correctly comprehend our environments—people and human behavior included. We know that actors have ends and choose according to preference because (a) we are self-aware, and recognize that we ourselves behave in this manner; (b) behaving in this manner is itself a manifestation of the regularity of cause and effect—cause and effect governs everything in this world, including human behavior; (c) this being the case, we know that other humans must behave similarly—if they were to behave otherwise, it would violate the principles of cause and effect.
No further justification or explication is required to ground praxeology and the action axiom. (Not that I’ve covered everything. I’m saying one need look no further for justification than in these areas.) The idea that praxeology is anchored in “folk” justifications is simply that—an idea. It stands without reason.
What is an “end in mind”? What is “preferring”? And what is “choosing one thing vs. another thing”? Can I observe any of these things? What are they? Where could I find them?
I didn’t mean for “believing” to be synonymous with truth. What does it mean to “deduce” something from our “understanding of the regularity of cause and effect in the external world”? Can’t I believe something not about the external world? Can’t I believe that I felt angry yesterday about something? And why does believing necessarily have to do with regularity? Can’t I simply remember that my car was somewhere at some time without taking a stance on whether that was normal, stable, or anything else like that?
Actors by definition have ends. We don’t need to justify that. It is true by definition.
Again this is just true by definition. We don’t need to justify it.
I don’t see where that came from. The foundation of truth is utility: connecting your means with your ends. But, of course, we have to ask the question: What is utility? And what are means and ends? This is the province of thymology.
Recognizing that we ourselves “behave” at all is the province of thymology. I understand that. My point is that we haven’t seen a scientific account of it in the Austrian school yet.
What does the “action axiom” refer to? Where can I observe those things? And so on.
Well, what I am trying to do is show that we are just relying on our common-sense understandings of words like “desire”, “belief”, and so on in praxeology. This is a work in progress. Maybe you could read my (inadequate) responses here and compare them with what I have already said to try to get a better idea of where I am coming from.
I’m not doubting these justifications. We need to understand something really important: Deductions are much less mystical than most people act like they are. Deducing something means something which might seem pretty unremarkable: It means that the words which you just said mean the same thing as what you “deduced” it from. Nothing else. If I wanted to mock it, I would just call it playing with language. But I don’t intend to mock it. It is very important. Language messes people up so much that having a system like praxeology (which is really just a language system) is really important. Most people arrive at most of their positions by just playing with words: having something like praxeology to put a check on that is important.
What I am doubting is where it all starts. I don’t doubt the deductions AFTER you come up with the category of action. But where does the category of action come from? Where does the action axiom come from? What does it refer to? Where could I observe these things?
I am saying that WHERE ALL OF THE DEDUCTIONS START is on a shaky foundation - “folk thymology”. What is desire? We don’t say anything about that except: You should know because you are human. But I don’t find that adequate. Defining desire should be as clear as this: Imagine a black horse. Did you? Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? But what the hell is desire? Well, you should already know, because you are human! Yeah, not good enough. It just relies on people having the same associations with those words, or at least similar ones. Take somebody who has the psychological mindset - somebody who thinks of neurons and whatever when they think of choice, desire, and so on - and those people won’t have any idea what you are talking about. It will sound like mysticism to them.
@IRyan
Hmm. It sounds to me like what you’re REALLY trying to do here—without having said so—is find an explanation for “how do we know that other humans act and think the way we do?” No?
No, I have that under control in this post.
@IRyan
Let’s examine the essence of the action axiom according to Rothbard’s conception:
Rothbard: Ends-seeking human behavior is a necessary feature of human nature. Indeed, our minds cannot even conceive of a voluntary human behavior which isn’t purposeful. Therefore we know that…
Nothing further is required. If people can meaningfully interpret action, then people can meaningfully interpret praxeological theory—its fundamental conceptions (i.e. ends-seeking behavior, preference, choice, etc.) are universally understood. Everybody’s on the same page here.
Just a definition.
Again just a definition.
Tell that to somebody with a pyschological mindset - they will see you as a mystic.
Again where can I observe “ends”, “preferences”, “choices”, and so on? I can tell you to imagine a black horse - that you can do clearly. But try imagining “ends”. What are they? Where can I observe them?
@IRyan
The method you propose will end up at the same place, though, no?
Worse, however, you won’t have the synthetic a priori to fall back on, once you dispense with it in your refusal to accept the validity of “ends”; “preferences”; etc.
The way I see it, you’re heading down a regressing path—and without a truth standard—an endlessly regressing path.
No, I don’t think so.
Why wouldn’t I have the synthetic a priori to fall back on?
And when did I refuse to accept the validity of ends, preferences, and so on?
Since when have I not had a “truth standard”?
Ha ha. WOW. We are not on the same page here. Maybe I should just ask you this:
What is so deficient about “praxeology”?
Be specific. Don’t say “Where can I see ‘desire’?”. Tell me why you’re concerned about needing to see desire in the first place. Why is it necessary? I’m completely missing your point. What is seeing desire going to do for your understanding of praxeology? Or, instead, are you NOT concerned with your own understanding, but that of others?