http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/28381/459878.aspxMy original post is here. I am not very impressed by the resulting discussion, however.
One of the absurd (perhaps latent) assumptions made by internet Austrians is that praxeology is the only method held by Austrian economists. It never seems to sink in to the Misesians that pure apriorist praxeology was rejected by Hayek and by some of the Austrian school influenced by Hayek.
Note the comments that Hayek made in a letter to Terence W. Hutchison dated 15 May, 1983:
“I had never accepted Mises’ a priorism .... Certainly 1936 was the time when I first saw my distinctive approach in full clarity – but at the time I felt it that I was merely at last able to say clearly what I had always believed – and to explain gently to Mises why I could not ACCEPT HIS A PRIORISM” (quoted in Caldwell 2009: 323–324).In a later interview, Hayek is quite explicit about his endorsement of a general Popperian method for economics:
“I became one of the early readers [sc. of Karl Popper’s Logik der Forschung, 1934]. It had just come out a few weeks before …. And to me it was so satisfactory because it confirmed this certain view I had already formed due to an experience very similar to Karl Popper’s. Karl Popper is four or five years my junior; so we did not belong to the same academic generation. But our environment in which we formed our ideas was very much the same. It was very largely dominated by discussion, on the one hand, with Marxists and, on the other hand, with Freudians. Both these groups had one very irritating attribute: they insisted that their theories were, in principle, irrefutable. Their system was so built up that there was no possibility – I remember particularly one occasion when I suddenly began to see how ridiculous it all was when I was arguing with Freudians, and they explained, “Oh, well, this is due to the death instinct.” And I said, “But this can’t be due to the [death instinct].” “Oh, then this is due to the life instinct.” … Well, if you have these two alternatives, of course there’s no way of checking whether the theory is true or not. And that led me, already, to the understanding of what became Popper’s main systematic point: that the test of empirical science was that it could be refuted, and that any system which claimed that it was irrefutable was by definition not scientific. I was not a trained philosopher; I didn’t elaborate this. It was sufficient for me to have recognized this, but when I found this thing explicitly argued and justified in Popper, I just accepted the Popperian philosophy for spelling out what I had always felt. Ever since, I have been moving with Popper” (Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: Friedrich A. von Hayek, pp. 18–19).One really has to wonder what Hayek would have thought about the hordes of ignorant Austrians on the internet today, claiming that the inferences of praxeology (and I stress the “inferences,” not the starting axioms) are irrefutable, and praxeology has no need for empirical evidence (which is in fact a distortion of what even Mises conceded). If Hayek were alive today and gave us an honest answer to this, he would have to class such vulgar Misesian praxeologists as talking nonsense on a par with Marxism and Freudian psychology.
Yet another subject rarely considered is the epistemology of Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) and its implications for Austrian praxeology.
If one sees any merit in Quine’s idea that there is no meaningful distinction between analytic or synthetic propositions (and I am not saying that I do), then it logically follows that the basis for the a priori status of the human action axiom is destroyed (in fact, the status of all alleged a priori propositions is fatally compromised). For Quine believed that no proposition is immune from possible revision of its truth by the test of experience, and that there is in fact no real a priori knowledge of reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Caldwell, B. 2009. “A Skirmish in the Popper Wars: Hutchison versus Caldwell on Hayek, Popper, Mises, and methodology,” Journal of Economic Methodology 16.3: 315–324.
Nobel Prize-Winning Economist: Friedrich A. von Hayek. Interviewed by Earlene Graver, Axel Leijonhufvud, Leo Rosten, Jack High, James Buchanan, Robert Bork, Thomas Hazlett, Armen A. Alchian, Robert Chitester, Regents of the University of California, 1983.
That thread over at Mises confirms something I've observed when debating praxeology several times: rarely do I find the praxeologist who is even willing to try to present *just one* of praxeology's findings in formal logical language.
ReplyDeleteG. J. Schuller made the same point years ago in a debate with Rothbard:
ReplyDelete“Acceptance of Mises’ stated axioms does not necessarily imply acceptance of the “principles” or “applications to reality” which he has drawn from them even though his logic may be impeccable. When a logical chain grows beyond the limits set by stated assumptions, it uses unstated assumptions. The number of unstated assumptions (axioms, postulates, or other) in Human Action is enormous. If Mises denies this, let him try to rewrite his book as a set of numbered axioms, postulates, and syllogistic inferences using, say, Russell’s Principia” (Schuller 1951: 188).
Schuller, G. J. 1951. “Mises’ ‘Human Action’: Rejoinder,” American Economic Review 41.1: p. 188.
If
ReplyDelete1) The model is logically consistent, and
2) The axioms, explicit or implicit, hold in reality, then
3) The conclusions of the model hold in reality
If not 3, then by contrapositive either not 1 or not 2.
Praxeology, then, in rejecting falsification, follows constructivist logic in rejecting the use of the contrapositive to prove the existence of a flaw in the model. The flaw must be proved directly (and on the Internet, if a flaw has not been directly proved yet, it must not exist - the theory is irrefutable).
Leaving aside how weird this seems, why is it that classical logic (where the excluded middle is included as an axiom) is good enough for natural sciences, but not for social sciences? What is so special about studying people that assuming P or not P is invalid?
Anonymous@Mar 7, 2012 11:14 AM
ReplyDeleteI am not sure, frankly, if this is meant to be a defence of praxeology.
"1) The model is logically consistent, and
2) The axioms, explicit or implicit, hold in reality, then
3) The conclusions of the model hold in reality"
The flaw in a good many praxeological arguments lies partly in (2), but also in subsidiary propositions and hidden assumptions, which must be true for the deductive argument to work and apply to the real world.
As a concrete example, why the praxeological "Ricardian Law of Association" fails:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/mises-on-ricardian-law-of-association.html
In addition, a good example below of whether the "axioms, explicit or implicit, hold in reality" as applied to minimum wage laws, although directed against neoclassical theory also applies to Austrian praxeology:
ReplyDeletehttp://freedomthistime.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/debunking-economics-part-3-work-and-wages/
Mises has a fantastic passage in Human Action:
ReplyDelete"It is customary for many people to blame economics for being backward. Now it is quite obvious that our economic theory is not perfect. There is no such thing as perfection in human knowledge, nor for that matter in any other human achievement. Omniscience is denied to man. The most elaborate theory that seems to satisfy completely our thirst for knowledge may one day be amended or supplanted by a new theory. Science does not give us absolute and final certainty. It only gives us assurance within the limits of our mental abilities and the prevailing state of scientific thought. A scientific system is but one station in an endlessly progressing search for knowledge. It is necessarily affected by the insufficiency inherent in every human effort. But to acknowledge these facts does not mean that present-day economics is backward. It merely means that economics is a living thing–and to live implies both imperfection and change."
I make the claim (here and here) that Mises cannot accept this passage unless praxeology was redefined as a theory that can be falsified.
LK, anon's post was very critical of praxeology. This very much gives it away: "Leaving aside how weird this seems, why is it that classical logic (where the excluded middle is included as an axiom) is good enough for natural sciences, but not for social sciences?"
ReplyDeleteI never understood Austrian horror of empiricism. If their theory is correct, then it will surely hold in reality; if it doesn't hold in reality, then what is it good for?
Quine was right (but there is a flaw in this statement ;)
ReplyDeleteEpistemologically we can't be certain of anything as there is no such thing as absolute truth, so any foundational axiom is not binding in the real world.
You can't construct statements about this universe like you construct closed mathematical systems from foundational axioms. And anyway, as Gödel showed, that's impossible too.
Lord Keynes:
ReplyDeleteIf you are serious about arguing that many Austrians don't accept praxeology, you should consider going all-out and argue that even Rothbard didn't really accept praxeology.
The concept of "action" is simply the concept of conscious, goal-directed activity. Mises argued that there is an underlying logical form or structure to action. The apriorism Mises refers to applies to all actions as actions, not merely to actions of people buying and selling on the market.
Yet, when Rothbard turned his attention to the ethical and political realm of human action, he totally abandoned praxeology and any mention of human action, means/ends, subjective value, methodological individualism, apriorism, etc. In fact, he argued that this procedure was not appropriate in other realms of human conduct, even though it is obvious that in these other realms of conduct, people "act."
If Rothbard believed in praxeology as a method for anayzing human action, then why did he abandon this method when it came to the actions people take in the ethical and political realms of conduct?
Is it because Rothbard only accepted praxeology to the extent it supported his positive conclusions regarding the market?
Otherwise, why did he argue for praxeology only in regard to market "actions" but not in regard to ethical or political "actions"?
Here is Hayek in “The Facts of the Social Sciences”:
ReplyDelete"Take such things as tools, food, medicine, weapons, words, sentences, communications, and acts of production---or any one particular instance of any of these.....It is easily seen that all these concepts (and the same is true of more concrete instances) refer not to some objective properties possessed by the things, or which the observer can find out about them, but to views which some other person holds about the things. These objects cannot even be defined in physical terms, because there is no single physical property which any one member of a class must possess. These concepts are also not merely abstractions of the kind we use in all physical sciences; they abstract from all the physical properties of the things themselves. They are all instances of what are sometimes called "teleological concepts," that is, they can be defined only by indicating relations between three terms: a purpose, somebody who holds that purpose, and an object which that person thinks to be a suitable means for that purpose. If we wish, we could say that all these objects are defined not in terms of their "real" properties but in terms of opinions people hold about them. In short, in the social sciences the things are what people think they are. Money is money, a word is a word, a cosmetic is a cosmetic, if and because somebody thinks they are."
"From the fact that whenever we interpret human action as in any sense purposive or meaningful, whether we do so in ordinary life or for the purposes of the social sciences, we have to define both the objects of human activity and the different kinds of actions themselves, not in physical terms but in terms of the opinions or intentions of the acting persons, there follow some very important consequences; namely, nothing less than that we can, from the concepts of the objects analytically conclude something about what the actions will be. If we define an object in terms of a person's attitude toward it, it follows, of course, that the definition of the object implies a statement about the attitude of the person toward the thing. When we say that a person possesses food or money, or that he utters a word, we imply that he knows that the first can be eaten, that the second can be used to buy something with, and that the third can be understood---and perhaps many other things."
Thus, the objects of the social sciences are subjective in nature. From the concept of the object before the actor, we can analytically conclude further things as Hayek indicates. Here, Hayek outlines an aprioristic procedure wherein analytical conclusions are drawn beginning from the concept of the object present to the actor.
If Hayek were alive today, I would ask Hayek to provide honest answers to the following questions:
1. In illustrating the above principles, you refer to some common objects of the social sciences such as food, money, words, medicine, weapons, sentences, etc. Why wouldn't the principles you describe apply to other objects of the social sciences such as markets, prices, languages, laws, etc?
If, from the concept of the object before the actor we may, by analysis, conclude other things in an a priori manner, then why can't we do so when the object before the actor is a market, a price, a language, a law, a family, etc., since these are all objects of the social sciences?
2. If we can apply your principles of aprioristic analysis to other objects besides the ones you listed in your example, then doesn't this mean that study of the market is a priori, to the extent your principles may be applied to the study of ANY market phenomenon?
If Hayek were alive today, I would ask for his honest answer to these questions.
Praxeology is essentially concerned with necessary relations.
ReplyDeleteIt is necessarily entailed in my "act" which is walking toward a location (phenomenon A), that I walk away from a different location (phenomenon B). The act entails a necessary co-present accompaniment or entailment which generally cannot be observed simultaneously with the act. (thus Menger's "knowledge extending beyond immediate experience")
If it can be proved or demonstrated that these kinds of necessary entailments only exist in a limited number of possible acts of the individual, or, if it can be proved or demonstrated that people are already aware of all of the necessary entailments which could possibly impact them, then:
The praxeologist is wasting his/her time in looking for necessary entailments in other areas of human activity (market phenomena, interpersonal relations, political relations, etc.).
And/or wasting his/her time in trying to demonstrate necessary relations in areas of human activity outside of the few activities where such necessary entailments are held to apply.
If, on the other hand, it cannot be proved or demonstrated that necessary entailments only exist in a limited number or type of actions, and, if it cannot be proved or demonstrated that people are already aware of all the necessary entailments that could possibly impact them, then the praxeologist acts reasonably in searching for necessary entailments that impact people in various realms of human activity (market phenomena, interpersonal relations, political relations, etc.).
Adam,
ReplyDeleteA good source about the understanding of what Hayek meant by 'pure logic of choice' and his criticisms of Mises a priorism is the comment section in Horwitz's blog post 'Hayek at His Most Misesian', specifically, the read the comments by Ryan Murphy and Greg Ransom. They both imply that what Hayek means by pure logic of choice is not the same thing as what Mises means by praxeology. Some of the comments that stand out are:
"Hayek makes it clear that we necessarily have apriori categorizations, meaning that there can never be any pure facts or empirical information. That isn't the same thing as saying our knowledge about the real world is a priori."
...
"[I]f you look at whom Hayek cites regarding methodology, it's not Mises. It's Popper. Yes, Hayek did study under Mises. He also said this:
"Let me get to the crucial point. What I see only now clearly is the problem of my relation to Mises, which began with my 1937 article on the economics of knowledge, which was an attempt to persuade Mises himself that when he asserted that market theory was a priori, he was wrong; that what was a priori was only the logic of individual action, but the moment that you passed from this to the interaction of many people, you entered into the empirical field." (p. 72 of Hayek on Hayek).
We can interpret certain other passages all we want that make it look like Hayek was saying the same thing as Mises, but they don't stand up to scrutiny unless Hayek was constantly contradicting himself. There are alternative explanations of those passages that sound extremely "Misesian" but have crucially different meanings when considering everything else that Hayek argued (for example, the one I initially pointed to in my first post)."- Ryan Murphy
----
"-- Hayek provides deep grounding to our understanding of the social science of property rights -- adding to our understanding of traditional rules of conduct and the evolution of law, linking these up to human anthropology, biology, and brain science, etc.
-- Hayek breaks free of (a) the justificationalist tradition; and (b) the deductivist model (3) the formalist tradition which models language and the growth of knowledge in terms of a set of "givens" mapped in a formal construct.
-- Hayek makes plain the priority of problem raising patterns in our experience and the significance of open-ended causal mechanisms.
To coin a phrase, Hayek does a better job of being true to the insights of Menger than does Mises.
Hayek also differs from Mises in the fact that Hayek expands the forward looking logic of marginal valuation into the realm of production goods across time, while Mises reverts to backward looking Ricardian categories in Mises model of the 'evenly rotating economy'." - Greg Ransom
Hi Isaac
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that Hayek was a conscious Misesian, or that his conception of the pure logic of choice was absolutely identical to Mises's praxeology.
My argument is that when Hayek demonstrated his understanding of the pure logic of choice, he didn't realize that in doing so, he inadvertently demonstrated an aprioristic approach to the study of the market:
"From the fact that whenever we interpret human action as in any sense purposive or meaningful, whether we do so in ordinary life or for the purposes of the social sciences, we have to define both the objects of human activity and the different kinds of actions themselves, not in physical terms but in terms of the opinions or intentions of the acting persons, there follow some very important consequences; namely, nothing less than that we can, from the concepts of the objects analytically conclude something about what the actions will be. If we define an object in terms of a person's attitude toward it, it follows, of course, that the definition of the object implies a statement about the attitude of the person toward the thing. When we say that a person possesses food or money, or that he utters a word, we imply that he knows that the first can be eaten, that the second can be used to buy something with, and that the third can be understood---and perhaps many other things."
If we simply substitute other social objects such as "market" or "price" for those that Hayek provides, then Hayek himself has provided the blueprint for an aprioristic apprehension of market phenomena. Whether this is Misesian or not is beside the point.
The form of Hayek's argument is: assume that X is the object of A's action. Then X implies Y which may not be immediately discernible to A, as an analytic necessity.
Assume A is studying X (markets, language, law, family life, etc.). "Markets" are the object of A's action. (the object of his focus, activity, study, etc.)
Hayek argues that if A's attitude toward an object is X, we may also conclude Y by analysis. Of course, A himself can undertake the same analysis Hayek describes. E.g., If X is the object of my study, I may conclude Y also, by analysis.
Regardless of how this relates to Mises, Hayek has argued that if A studies X (if A's attitude toward an object is X), that further things may be concluded about X by analysis.
This is the pure logic of choice in the case where A is a social scientist, and the object of A's action (study) is a market.
This is an a priori approach to the study of the market.
Adam,
ReplyDeleteBut Hayek's pure logic of choice derives things apriori in an individual basis but the interactions between individuals (in this case 'the study of a market') is an empirical study, not an apriori one. Hayek basically answered the questions you asked him with the passage below:
"Let me get to the crucial point. What I see only now clearly is the problem of my relation to Mises, which began with my 1937 article on the economics of knowledge, which was an attempt to persuade Mises himself that when he asserted that market theory was a priori, he was wrong; that what was a priori was only the logic of individual action, but the moment that you passed from this to the interaction of many people, you entered into the empirical field." (p. 72 of Hayek on Hayek).
Isaac:
DeleteLet's assume Hayek instructs me (M) to go out in the field and study markets or interactions between individuals. I assume these two things are both objects of the social sciences(?).
I go out in the field and find people interacting (let's say talking) and find a market (let's say a farmer's market).
Hayek argues that these objects, as objects of the social sciences, cannot be defined in physical terms, but can only be defined in terms of the intentions or opinions of the acting persons. The social interaction or market that I observe, can only be defined in terms of my opinion or intention that I am dealing with a case of social interaction or a market.
The essential form is: I, person M, observe a market (X). Or, I, person M, observe people interacting (X). Where X cannot be defined in physical terms; only in terms of my opinion or intention that what I observe is a market or people interacting.
Hayek argues that from the concept of the object of my action X, further things may be analytically concluded.
If Hayek has sent me to study a market or interactions between people(X), then when I find what I believe to be a market, or what I believe to be a case of social interaction (X), why can't I conclude further things by analysis as Hayek indicates?
Your reply is "Because Hayek said study of the market is empirical on page 72 of Hayek on Hayek."
I acknowledge what Hayek wrote in Hayek on Hayek.
But I'm asking you why Hayek's principles don't apply to the example I've provided.
I'm not sure you're understanding my point.