Well some would argue that morality operates in the same way.
It could… I don’t know how the world looks through your eyes!
A good example of this is a story I heard on the radio regarding numbers:
So these mathematicians go to the deep Amazon rainforest, and are interviewing these natives that have had no sustained contact with the “civilized” world before. They put a single block, and ten blocks on opposite sides of a table. They’d then ask the tribes-people “what number is between these two?” Time after time, the natives would say “three” insead of “five” the answer you and I would probably give them. Confused by these seemingly mathematically illiterate natives, the mathematicians concluded that the natives were counting logarithmically, not linearly. This is also how babies naturally count, until they are conditioned to count the way we always do.
Now, would we consider the natives illogical? Is it just that they are so divergent culturally, that our concepts of “common sense” diverged enough to fundamentally alter our respective concepts of “logic”?
Will do.
My point with thymology is that it is an intregal part in the field of knowledge. You cannot have praxeology itself without thymology being beside it so I think it incorrect to say that thymology works within praxeology or under its framework. It is on the same level as praxeology itself. You seem to be saying something similar to having a tree diagram with praxeology at the top and a line going down to thymology then the lines dispersing. I don’t think that correct. I think thymology is on the same level as praxeology so they are both at the top and a line connects them both then move down.
Yes praxeology is the action itself. However, thymology is on the other side. The history, the value statements, the speculation on human behavior. If we think of ethics as the discovering of the “good” for humanity then it is clearly a thymological process because what is good, how humans behave and understanding that behavior is what thymology encompasses. Now you can have praxeology ascepts of that by saying person X acted because they prefer such and such but the why is what thymology seems to want to answer. Praxeology doesn’t seem so concerned with the ‘why’, merely the what.
Not necessarily. With thymology you can speculate on future human behavior and interactions.
‘More concretely, all our anticipations about how family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers will react in particular situations are based on our accumulated thymological experience.’ - Salerno
No, I agree. Thymology is a very important field which is why I put it at par with praxeology. Like I stated previous, you cannot understand the concept of money in a society without thymology. Praxeology can tell you this information about money but you first need to establish what is and isn’t money.
How do you see Roderick Long’s concept of thymology as being in conflict with praxeology?
No, they are counting logarithmically, and not linearly. They would be illogical if they said that “a” is and isn’t “a” at the same time, and in the same respect.
Reading that only makes me wonder how flawed, narrow minded and value judging those researchers’ methodology is. The natives’ answer is correct, 3 (or any between 2 and 9) does lie between 1 and 10, they didn’t by your statement specify halfway between, which then would require them to explain a foreign concept to a people that never rationally acquired a need to develop.
I highly recommend you read through the first part of Human Action, especially since Mises covers similiar erroneous conclusions in support of polylogism drawn from the anthroplogical work of Lucien Levy Bruhl based upon his encounters with savages.
Even if what you say is true:
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That infants somehow posess a different numerary logic to ours “counting” logarithmically.
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That isolated communities possess this characteristic too.
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How in the world did we in the civilised world arrive at the concept of numbers that we cannot even reason fully contrary to without contradicting ourselves? Divine inspiration?
Forgive me if I seem overly harsh in my skepticism, I think resistance to polylogism is one of the few things I share with Richard Dawkins.
This is due to my flaws as a good story relater, it was halfway between.
Got it on order.
You don’t give your species enough credit, my man. Linear counting is an innovation, much like numbers, or language.
I’m a bit confused by this article, you can defy, not deny, gravity and you can defy, not deny, moral law and yet gravity is objective and moral law isn’t? Why is this hypothetical man in jail if he stole a piece of property? Natural rights are not denied simply because someone steals from me or else how/why could I regain my stolen possessions? If I was denied natural rights then am I lost to wander the world without them until I die? And if I am not then how would I somehow regain them? I also don’t understand how you say a fact is rendered subjective. Is it because one must accept facts based on one’s condition? If so then everything in the world could be subjective for I can defy any bit of knowledge in the world based on my condition and thereby making anything subjective. I could postulate that Austrians don’t actually exist. I could also say Marxists are for free markets or Charles Fourier was a genius.
Laughing Man:
I don’t know where you are getting your concept of thymology, but I just assume it is from professor Long. As I wrote, anyone is free to develop their own concepts of praxeology, thymology, natural law, etc…
My only contention here is that the concept of thymology you are propounding is not consistent with Mises’s conception of it. Your concept of thymology might have its own merits, and professor Long’s concept of thymology might have its own merits. Whatever their merits may be, the conception is not the conception Mises had in mind. That is my argument. I will attempt to illustrate by referring to the examples you provide above:
Regarding #1:
“If we think of ethics as the discovering of the “good” for humanity..”
Then praxeology conceives this as an attempt at something. An attempt to discover the good. Discovering the good is the end, and there are means utilized toward this end. Thymology—I am arguing, based on my interpretation of Mises’s system—then asks things like: Who attempted to discover the good? (concrete actor specified) Why did he/she attempt to discover the good? (in order to = means/ends explanation specified) How did he/she attempt to discover the good? (concrete means specified).
In other words, in the Misesian system, the formal construct of action is provided by praxeology: Actor, means and ends. Thymology is the attempt to ascertain what the actual content is/was. The concrete person, the concrete end sought, the concrete means utilized, i.e., the information that formal praxeology does not provide.
Regarding #2:
“With thymology you can speculate on future human behavior and interactions”
In the Misesian conception, “speculation” is an action. It is an “attempt to” or a “trying to.”
If an actor speculates, this is simply an action, the formal nature of which praxeology conceives. Thymology asks: Who is speculating? (concrete person specified) Why are they speculating? (in order to = means/ends explanation specified) How are they speculating? (concrete means specified)
The speculating you are referring to, in the Misesian system, would be speculation as to the concrete content of a supposed action.
Who…will strive after what ends…utilizing what means…?
The behaviors and interactions you are referring to, in the Misesian system, would all be absolutely conceived in terms of the formal structure provided by praxeology.
Are you meaning to imply that thymology is a discipline that would speculate about forms or modes of acting that would be non-praxeological forms???
In Misesian praxeology, the form of action is assumed or supposed. Thymological speculation refers to the concrete content of the actions supposed.
Regarding #3:
Salerno writes “concretely.” This does not conflict with what I’m asserting about the Misesian conception of thymology. The “how” refers to the concrete means and the concrete ends that friends, family members, etc… will employ. If in the future, I initiate a political discussion at Thanksgiving dinner, will my family react by arguing heatedly against me? Or by standing up and leaving the room? Or by applauding wildly ? What concrete means toward what concrete ends will specific person A do when I initiate said discussion ?
Regarding #4:
The concept of money ultimately derives from the concept of an actor who seeks to attain his ends utilizing means to do so. Whether the actor in the individual case utilizes round discs of metal, pieces of paper, blocks of salt, cigarettes, etc… toward his ends, is a thymological question. In the Misesian conception, ascertaining the concrete content of the individual action is a thymological-historical, not a theoretical pursuit.
An analogy might be geology. A large swath of trees has been knocked down, and the trees are all pointing in the same direction. This is the historical evidence. The evidence is consistent with a number of plausible explanations. A large wind storm may have caused the trees to all be knocked over. Or, a large piece of land may have fallen into a nearby body of water, resulting in a large wave that caused the trees to all be knocked over in one direction.
Whatever concrete explanation is given, it can’t contradict the physical laws. Providing the concrete explanation, in terms of the physical laws, is the task of the geologist (here, I don’t claim to know with precision that this is absolutely correct. I assume what the geologist does for illustrative purposes).
Let’s assume a geologist discovers a previously unknown physical law. Then, in this sense, he is a physicist, since he discovered a previously unknown regularity in the sequence of physical phenomena.
If we conceive that a “thymologist” uncovers a previously unknown mode of action, or conceives of action by means of a different scheme (constitutive means for example), then in the Misesian system, in this respect, that person is a praxeologist. He uncovers a previously unknown constant relationship in the field of human action, or he discovers a new way to conceive of action. Then, he does praxeology. He conceives universal features of human action in a new way.
Regarding #5:
I don’t know enough about Long’s precise concept of thymology to answer this accurately at this time. But I know that his concept of praxeology is not identical to Mises’s, and in my opinion, Long’s concept diverges from Mises’s significantly. (Mises was concerned with regularity in the phenomena of action, not with “conceptual incoherence”)
Long’s conception of thymology, if it is connected to his conception of praxeology, is, in my opinion, unlikely to be consistent with Mises’s unless it were by accident.
Does this mean that Long’s conception of thymology is necessarily inconsistent or inaccurate? No.
My point is that if there are several distinct and non-identical theoretical conceptions or constructs that are claiming the same name, it will only lead to confusion. For example, does natural law mean the discovery of what is right? Or does it refer to regularity in the sequence of events?
When we are talking about thymology, we need to be clear about whose concept of thymology we are talking about. Is it Misesian thymology, a branch of knowledge Mises conceived as complimentary to praxeology? Or is thymology something different, a realm of theoretical inquiry running parallel to praxeology, with one of its sub-branches being normative ethics?
Some innovation, even bees can do it.
Via an innovation developed by the trial and error process know as natural selection.
So lets not get hasty crediting our species, we aren’t the first.
Sure, but we don’t leave that stuff up to fate, we create our own destiny as a species, and I personally think that’s something unique.
That is what I was saying. Praxeology tells us the what while thymology tells us the why. However, through the quote I provided by Mises. Thymology is value statements. It is experience, broad empirical data. Not empirical in the sense that it is laboratory data but basic human experience. Thymology is also not apodictically certain.
I’m not denying the merits of praxeology. Through the discussion I have repeated that thymology and praxeology are necessary for one another. Remember my written tree diagram with praxeology and thymology both at the top. You seem to be saying that praxeology comes first and then comes the thymology but praxeology wouldn’t even be able to applied to reality if it were not for human understanding. Both are required and are dependent upon the other.
Also Ethical systems are concerned with human interactions are they not? What is and isn’t acceptable behavior?
The concept of money is a general medium of exchange meaning that one individual cannot simply decide what is and isn’t money. Human experiences is necessary to tell what actual is money in a given society. You have to go there and experience it. You cannot apodictically state what is or isn’t money in a society nor can you even know there is money since they could be bartering.
Well I was listening to some of Long’s lectures last night and I found these too which he addressed thymology.
Aprioism and Positivism in the Social Science ( 26 mins in )
Praxeology: The Austrian Method ( 39 mins in )
He also has a long paper on action, I haven’t gone through it but if I see anything in it I will pass it on.
Yet, it clearly isn’t unique as it isn’t specific to the species. We didn’t innovate, we just discovered, as other species have done.
But the other species don’t consciously innovate, they rely on the “market of genes” to determine the winners and losers, not action.
Ooh, creepy, praxeologically, would genes be conscious?
And you know man consciously learned to count and other species didn’t how? Men do have genes do they not? They must play some role.
No.
Because or natural inclination is to see number logarithmically, not linearly, we must’ve overcome that somehow.
Why not?
How do you know that is our natural inclination?
Genes don’t act purposefully.
I blindly believe what scientists tell me
how do you know?
I’ll let Gene Callahan explain.