Laughing Man:
You are making the case for what thymology IS, by using Long’s definition of what thymology is.
My point is not that Long’s definition is necessarily wrong, incorrect, or inconsistent. I believe that would have to be established separately, on the merits of Long’s definition and conception of thymology.
You, as a Long supporter and follower, are simply taking Long’s definition and conception of thymology, and making the existential or ontological argument that thymology IS…(insert Long’s definition here).
I’m saying that Long’s definition and conception is not identical to Mises’s definition and conception. So while you are perfectly at liberty to assert unconditionally that thymology is what Long says it is, I’m simply going to point out that Mises said it was something else. Also, Mises was the one who coined the term thymology, so reference to his conception, as distinct from Long’s conception, would seem reasonable.
Here is Long’s own account of Mises’s conception of thymology:
“Ludwig von Mises introduced into Austrian theory a distinction between praxeology, the method of economic theory, and thymology, the method of economic history. Praxeology comprises a set of a priori insights into the nature and implications of human action; thymology involves identifying, via the hermeneutical method of verstehen, the particular means and ends chosen in particular cases. Thus praxeology, for example, states the laws governing monetary exchange, while thymology determines whether a particular interaction is in fact a case of monetary exchange. For Mises, thymology presupposes praxeology, since one must possess such concepts as means and ends before one can apply them. Praxeology, by contrast, does not presuppose thymology: Mises maintains, in Kantian terms, that we derive our praxeological categories not from experience but from the innate structure of the human mind.” (Long, “Rule Following, Praxeology, and Anarchy” New Perspectives on Political Economy, p.41)
With respect to the underlined passage, then Long goes on to propose his own revised conception of the relationship between praxeology and thymology:
“It further follows that the relation of dependence between praxeology and thymology must be two-way rather than one-way…In that sense, Rothbard and Lavoie are correct in holding, against Mises, that praxeological insight requires some sort of experience…”
Thus, as I read Long, he is saying that Mises’s conception is wrong, and he is proposing a revision to Mises’s conception of thymology. The Longian conception of thymology and the Misesian conception of praxeology are distinctly different. When we speak of thymology, I suggest we clarify whether we are referring to the Long conception or the Mises conception.
One note I would like to make about Long’s concept(s) that I think may be helpful.
In describing his own conception of the relationship of praxeology and thymology, Long concludes:
“Praxeological and thymological understanding arise together; they are simply aspects—not separable components—of the single indissoluble whole which is intelligent human experience.” (Ibid., p. 43)
I believe this conception of Long’s is intimately connected to his concept of “constitutive means,” which is also a concept in which the means are aspects—not separable components—of a single indissoluble whole.
Besides the fact that Long’s concept of constitutive means fails his own test of what is a constitutive means (in his own description of what a constitutive means is, he provides a test for it, then neglects to apply that test to the entity he asserts is a constitutive means. see: A Short Critique of Long's Theory of Constitutive Means ), the concept of an indissoluble whole is problematic in the context of a theory of human action for the following general reason:
When we conceive that an object is already constituted (the object and its aspects already constitute the whole in question), then a problem arises as to how any action can take place with respect to constituting the whole that the actor desires to constitute.
In other words, the problem of human action is how an actor can constitute a desired whole, or, given one whole, how an actor can attain or obtain a different one.
The statement that [wholes] are constituted by [their aspects] does not solve that problem.
In this formulation reference to human action is absent.