Mises on Kant and Praxeology

Robert Murphy is currently positing a peculiar interpretation of Mises’s economic epistemology (discussed here and in the comments section of the post). Murphy argues that Mises thought Euclidean geometry is analytic a priori but at the same time provides real necessary knowledge of the external world. Murphy also implies that Mises did not really adopt Kant’s concept of synthetic a priori knowledge in his view of praxeology.

The debate all stems from Mises’s confusion about basic epistemological concepts such as analyticity, a confusion identified by Hans Albert (1999: 131–132).

And this passage from Mises’s The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (1962) shows that his view of praxeology is indeed indebted to Kant:

“There are two branches of the sciences of human action, praxeology on the one hand, history on the other hand.

Praxeology is a priori. It starts from the a priori category of action and develops out of it all that it contains. For practical reasons praxeology does not as a rule pay much attention to those problems that are of no use for the study of the reality of man’s action, but restricts its work to those problems that are necessary for the elucidation of what is going on in reality. Its intent is to deal with action taking place under conditions that acting man has to face. This does not alter the purely aprioristic character of praxeology. It merely circumscribes the field that the individual praxeologists customarily choose for their work. They refer to experience only in order to separate those problems that are of interest for the study of man as he really is and acts from other problems that offer a merely academic interest. The answer to the question whether or not definite theorems of praxeology apply to a definite problem of action depends on the establishment of the fact whether or not the special assumptions that characterize this theorem are of any value for the cognition of reality. To be sure, it does not depend on the answer to the question whether or not these assumptions correspond to the real state of affairs that the praxeologists want to investigate. The imaginary constructions that are the main—or, as some people would rather say, the only—mental tool of praxeology describe conditions that can never be present in the reality of action. Yet they are indispensable for conceiving what is going on in this reality. Even the most bigoted advocates of an empiricist interpretation of the methods of economics employ the imaginary construction of an evenly rotating economy (static equilibrium), although such a state of human affairs can never be realized.

Following in the wake of Kant’s analyses, philosophers raised the question: How can the human mind, by aprioristic thinking, deal with the reality of the external world? As far as praxeology is concerned, the answer is obvious. Both, a priori thinking and reasoning on the one hand and human action on the other, are manifestations of the human mind. The logical structure of the human mind creates the reality of action. Reason and action are congeneric and homogeneous, two aspects of the same phenomenon. In this sense we may apply to praxeology the dictum of Empedocles γνῶσις τοῦ ὁμοίου τῷ ὁμοίῳ.

Some authors have raised the rather shallow question how a praxeologist would react to an experience contradicting theorems of his aprioristic doctrine. The answer is: in the same way in which a mathematician will react to the ‘experience’ that there is no difference between two apples and seven apples or a logician to the ‘experience’ that A and non-A are identical. Experience concerning human action presupposes the category of human action and all that derives from it. If one does not refer to the system of the praxeological a priori, one must not and cannot talk of action, but merely of events that are to be described in terms of the natural sciences. Awareness of the problems with which the sciences of human action are concerned is conditioned by familiarity with the a priori categories of praxeology. Incidentally, we may also remark that any experience in the field of human action is specifically historical experience, i.e., the experience of complex phenomena, which can never falsify any theorem
in the way a laboratory experiment can do with regard to the statements of the natural sciences.” (Mises 1962: 41–42).

For Mises, the human mind has Kantian a priori categories and presumably Kant’s two “pure forms of cognition/intuition” (namely, space and time).

But for Kant humans could not know necessary truth of the true external world (what Kant called the “thing-in-itself” or the world of “noumena”). Rather, Kant thought that necessary and universal truth exists in the human world of the “objects of our experience” or the “phenomena,” or what modern philosophers might call the world of “sense data” in our minds. Nevertheless, this world of “phenomena” was “empirically real” for Kant (as well as “transcendentally ideal”). So Kantian synthetic a priori appears to be confined to the world of “phenomena,” not of the external world of “noumena”.

Mises dispenses with this, and thinks that human categories and a priori thought provide real knowledge of an external world (or what Kant called the “thing-in-itself”).

The trouble with Mises’s view is that Kant’s a priori “categories” and “pure forms,” to the extent that any of them exist, are innate biological and contingent traits of the human mind given to us by Darwinian evolution.

The modern discipline of “evolutionary epistemology” has shown convincingly that such traits are not epistemologically a priori:

“Konrad Lorenz [a evolutionary epistemologist] …. is famous for reinterpreting Kant’s synthetic a priori claims. No longer are the inborn categories regarded as evidently true, rather, they are understood to be “ontogenetically a priori and phylogenetically a posteriori.” This means that an individual organism is born with innate dispositions. These innate dispositions are acquired phylogenetically, through the evolution of the species, by means of the mechanism of natural selection. Most importantly, these dispositions are fallible, because they are the result of selection, not instruction. That is, these dispositions are adaptations, and natural selection only weeds out maladaptive organisms, which results in the survival of the adaptive ones. ….

According to Lorenz, and contrary to Kant, the thing in itself (Das Ding an Sich) is knowable through the categories of the knower, not the characteristics of the thing in itself, and selection results in a partial isomorphism through adaptation. …. Thus, through adaptation, there is a correspondence between our images of the world and the world in itself, or between organism and environment, or between theories and the world. This is of course not a 1-to-1 correspondence; our image of a tree is not like a real tree, but because our cognitive apparatus is adapted to the world, there is a partial isomorphism between the two. Adaptations thus become a description of the world in a biological language.”
Gontier, “Evolutionary Epistemology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006
http://www.iep.utm.edu/evo-epis/

Nevertheless, human innate cognitive and psychological traits do not provide us with necessarily true and a priori knowledge of the external world: some of our mental traits and “categories” are partially isomorphic but others can be fallible and mistaken. Ultimately, they are all a posteriori and contingent.

A second point is that this passage above also shows that Mises rejects, and perhaps does not even understand, the distinction between (1) analytic a priori pure mathematics and geometry and (2) synthetic a posteriori applied mathematics and geometry.

And, for Mises, both mathematics and praxeology are a priori and also provide real necessary knowledge of reality. That entails that Mises saw these things as Kantian synthetic a priori knowledge.

Links
Gontier, “Evolutionary Epistemology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006
http://www.iep.utm.edu/evo-epis/

“Evolutionary Epistemology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001 (rev. 2012)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-evolutionary/


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albert, H. 1999. Between Social Science, Religion and Politics: Essays in Critical Rationalism. Rodopi, Amsterdam.

Mises, Ludwig von. 1962. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method. Van Nostrand, Princeton, N.J.

Mises’s Non Sequitur on synthetic a priori Knowledge

We can find it here in Mises’s book The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (1962):

“The essence of logical positivism is to deny the cognitive value of a priori knowledge by pointing out that all a priori propositions are merely analytic. They do not provide new information, but are merely verbal or tautological, asserting what has already been implied in the definitions and premises. Only experience can lead to synthetic propositions. There is an obvious objection against this doctrine, viz., that this proposition that there are no synthetic a priori propositions is in itself a—as the present writer thinks, false—synthetic a priori proposition, for it can manifestly not be established by experience.” (Mises 1962: 5).

The proposition that “there are no synthetic a priori propositions” would appear to be synthetic a posteriori, for one could indeed refute it by successfully demonstrating the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge.

Alternatively, it could be verified by demonstrating empirically that all alleged examples of synthetic a priori knowledge are untenable and can be refuted by empirical evidence. And, in fact, the latter has been the fate of all alleged kinds of synthetic a priori knowledge, such as, for instance, Euclidean geometry.

Even the Kantian idea of necessary, deterministic causation as a universal truth known a priori is untrue given modern quantum physics (Melnick 2006: 229; Anscombe 1993), which now separates the notions of causation and determinism (Weinert 2004: 260).

At most, the strict notion of deterministic, necessary causation is probably true of the macroscopic world – a limited domain – but breaks down at the level of the quantum world. But we only know this a posteriori (empirically), and not as an a priori or a necessary truth.

If this isn’t bad enough Mises then proceeds to shoot himself in the foot, and demonstrates how his own statement above is highly dubious, by admitting that modern science has questioned the synthetic a priori status of Euclidean geometry:

“The whole controversy is, however, meaningless when applied to praxeology. It refers essentially to geometry. Its present state, especially its treatment by logical positivism, has been deeply influenced by the shock that Western philosophy received from the discovery of non-Euclidian geometries. Before Bolyai and Lobachevsky, geometry was, in the eyes of the philosophers, the paragon of perfect science; it was assumed that it provided unshakable certainty forever and for everybody. To proceed also in other branches of knowledge more geometrico was the great ideal of truth-seekers. All traditional epistemological concepts began to totter when the attempts to construct non-Euclidian geometries succeeded.

Yet praxeology is not geometry. It is the worst of all superstitions to assume that the epistemological characteristics of one branch of knowledge must necessarily be applicable to any other branch. In dealing with the epistemology of the sciences of human action, one must not take one’s cue from geometry, mechanics, or any other science.

The assumptions of Euclid were once considered as self-evidently true. Present-day epistemology looks upon them as freely chosen postulates, the starting point of a hypothetical chain of reasoning. Whatever this may mean, it has no reference at all to the problems of praxeology.” (Mises 1962: 5).

Come again? The collapse of Euclidean geometry as synthetic a priori knowledge has “[n]o reference at all to the problems of praxeology”? The stupidity of this passage beggars belief.

The issue of whether Euclidean geometry is synthetic a priori knowledge is absolutely of great relevance to the epistemological status of Mises’s praxeology, because Mises needs to prove that synthetic a priori knowledge exists.

But, having assured us that there is good reason to believe in the truth of synthetic a priori knowledge, Mises then immediately seems to concede that Euclidean geometry – the leading paradigm of the synthetic a priori – was not actually synthetic a priori at all, which destroys much of the alleged evidence for the existence of the latter.

Mises’s statement that “[p]resent-day epistemology looks upon [sc. the assumptions of Euclid] … as freely chosen postulates, the starting point of a hypothetical chain of reasoning” seems to be a tacit admission, or veiled reference to, the finding of modern science that Euclidean geometry as a universal theory of space is false.

Without any convincing evidence for the truth of synthetic a priori knowledge, Mises’s whole system of praxeology is left hanging in the air, without foundation, and must come crashing down.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1993. “Causality and Determination,” in Ernest Sosa and Michael Tooley (eds.), Causation. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Melnick, Arthur. 2006. “Kant’s Proof of Substance and Causation,” in Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 203–237.

Mises, Ludwig von. 1962. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method. Van Nostrand, Princeton, N.J.

Weinert, Friedel. 2004. The Scientist as Philosopher: Philosophical Consequences of Great Scientific Discoveries. Springer, Berlin and London.

Epistemology and Kinds of Knowledge

This is a prolegomena to a discussion of the status of Mises’s human action axiom and praxeology. Mises is usually thought to have argued that the human action axiom had a “synthetic a priori” status. Whether that is credible is highly questionable.

But before a serious discussion of this issue, some comments about epistemology are necessary. Hence this post.

“Epistemology” is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. How do know truths? What kind of knowledge and truths are there?

Though it is a simplification, in essence there are four positions held since the late 18th century on the kinds of knowledge:

(1) The radical view of Willard Van Orman Quine that the analytic–synthetic distinction is a dogmatic myth;

(2) the empiricist view, associated with the logical positivists, that there are only two relevant distinctions:

(i) analytic/a priori, and
(ii) synthetic/a posteriori truth and propositions.

(3) the view of Immanuel Kant that recognises three distinctions:

(i) analytic a priori,
(ii) synthetic a posteriori, and
(iii) the synthetic a priori;

(4) the view of Saul Kripke that, as well as the analytic and synthetic, there are additional kinds of knowledge:

(i) contingent a priori;
(ii) necessary a posteriori.

In addition, the basic conceptual distinctions in the nature of propositions and truth can be given, as follows:

(1) analytic versus synthetic;

(2) a priori versus a posteriori; and

(3) necessary versus contingent.

The analytic versus synthetic distinction, formulated properly by Immanuel Kant, is usually taken to refer to propositions (or statements).

A statement that is true solely by virtue of the meaning or definition of the terms used is analytic, and it has logically necessary truth. This means that a denial of such a proposition would entail self-contradiction.

An older definition (used by Kant) is that a proposition whose predicate expresses ideas conceptually already contained (explicitly or implicitly) in the subject is analytic, such as the following propositions:

(1) All sad widows are sad.

(2) all red coloured things are red.

(3) all bachelors are unmarried.

(4) All (normal) bipeds are two-footed.

(5) All triangles have three sides.

In propositions (1) and (2) above, you can see that the idea expressed in the predicate is already explicitly verbally contained in the subject (or, strictly speaking, in the noun phrases that function as the subject). In propositions (3), (4), and (5), the predicate expresses an idea implicitly contained in the subject, which is to say that the subject already carries that idea in its implicit definition, as understood in a language or community of speakers.

Analytic propositions are true a priori (or prior to or without experience, experimentation, or empirical evidence) and are necessarily true (and their negation is impossible).

Such propositions are called analytic a priori.

Many such propositions can be regarded as tautologies and are non-informative, in the sense that they do not by themselves add new information to our knowledge of the world, because the knowledge in the predicate was already contained in the subject or deducible from it. Another way of saying this is that many are often trivial truths.

All propositions that are not true by virtue of the terms used are synthetic, and their negation is logically possible. Another way of saying this is that the predicate does not express an idea contained in the subject:

(1) Some widows are sad.

(2) Some swans are black.

(3) the earth’s sun contains hydrogen and helium.

Here the predicate is not obviously contained in the subject of the propositions, and the propositions are true a posteriori, or by means of experience, experimentation, or empirical evidence (although often this empirical verification has already been done by people before us). They have contingent, not necessary truth. Such propositions are called synthetic a posteriori.

But there is one more type of proposition proposed by philosophers and logicians, as we can see here (listed after the other two I have described above):

(1) analytic a priori;

(2) synthetic a posteriori, and

(3) synthetic a priori.

This is (3): the synthetic a priori proposition. Nevertheless, the existence of synthetic a priori propositions is debated.

Some proposed examples can be given:

(1) nothing is both green and red all over.

(2) all events are caused.

Are these, as Kant thought, synthetic a priori, in the sense that they are necessarily true but not analytic (that is, not vacuous)?

Consider the proposition that “all events are caused.” Supposedly, this is synthetic a priori and necessarily true. But modern quantum mechanics would appear to cast doubt on that idea (in its conventional sense) since it is believed by some scientists that certain quantum mechanical events can be uncaused. At the very least, there is genuine dispute and, ultimately, the proposition that “all events are caused” was arguably really just a synthetic a posteriori proposition, and never had necessary truth.

The logical positivists denied the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge, and argued only two real distinctions are useful and valid:

(i) analytic/a priori, and

(ii) synthetic/a posteriori.

By contrast, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) attacked this view in his famous article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951; reprinted in Quine 1981), in which he argued that the analytic versus synthetic distinction does not exist. Although this paper was directed against the logical positivists, its thesis is equally damaging to apriorist rationalists, and in fact Quine was himself an empiricist.

Moreover, in Quine’s view, synthetic a priori do not exist either.

However, many think Quine’s critique is ultimately unconvincing (Grice and Strawson 1956), and that a strong case for the existence of analytic propositions can be made. I agree with this.

For example, Putnam argued that there is an analytic versus synthetic distinction but that it is ultimately a trivial one (Putnam 1962: 361). He also contended that there are a vast number of propositions that cannot be easily classified into either category (Putnam 1962: 364), and a better model is one with three classes:

(1) analytic
(2) synthetic
(3) various other kinds (Putnam 1962: 364).

Putnam (1962: 370) points out that modern science has revised the status of propositions which previous scientists or philosophers thought were a priori true as analytic statements, but which subsequently turned out to be synthetic statements which were false.

A fundamentally influential work was Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (1980) (on Kripke, see Berger 2011; Sosa 2006; Burgess 2013; Hughes 2004). This advocated an even more complicated view. Kripke held that the notion of “necessity” as distinct from “contingency” must be metaphysical/ontological, whereas the “a priori” versus “a posteriori” distinction is epistemic (Scruton 1994: 162). The synthetic versus analytic distinction is semantic.

These concepts do not coincide, and Kripke presented arguments for additional types of knowledge, such as:

(i) the contingent a priori;

(ii) the necessary a posteriori.

Kripke also argued that identities are necessarily true, that names are “rigid designators,” and that some things have real essences (Scruton 1994: 164). This leads into the idea that “necessary a posteriori” truths exist: such as, for example, that the “morning star is the evening star” (namely, the planet Venus). On Kripke’s theory, that identity is necessary, but was discovered empirically: hence it is a “necessary a posteriori” proposition.

Another category is the “contingent a priori,” such as the idea that we know a priori that a metre rod is a meter long, but nevertheless “metre” could have been historically and scientifically defined at a different length (so it is therefore contingent).

But whether Kripke’s argument for “contingent a priori” propositions really succeeds is disputed (Scruton 1994: 165). At first glance, Kripke’s “contingent a priori” looks similar to Kant’s “synthetic a priori,” but on closer inspection there is an important difference. Kant’s “synthetic a priori” knowledge cannot be contingent, but Kripke’s “contingent a priori” can.

Though it is a subject for another post, the only epistemology capable of supporting Mises’s human action axiom, with its alleged “synthetic a priori” status, is really the Kantian theory of knowledge. But Kantian epistemology looks rather outdated in terms of the modern theory of knowledge.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berger, Alan. (ed.). 2011. Saul Kripke. Cambridge University Press, New York and Cambridge.

Burgess, John P. 2013. Kripke. Polity, Cambridge.

Fodor, Jerry. “Water’s Water Everywhere” (review of Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity by Christopher Hughes)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n20/jerry-fodor/waters-water-everywhere

Grice, H. P. and P. F. Strawson. 1956. “In Defence of a Dogma,” Philosophical Review 65: 141–158.

Hughes, Christopher. 2004. Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Kripke, Saul A. 1980. Naming and Necessity (rev. edn.). Blackwell, Oxford.

Putnam, H. 1962. “The Analytic and the Synthetic,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 3: 358–397.

Quine, W. V. 1951. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Philosophical Review 60: 20–43.

Quine, W. V. 1981. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 20–46.

Schwartz, Stephen P. 2012. A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: from Russell to Rawls. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester.

Scruton, R. 1994. Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey. Penguin Books, London.

Sosa, D. 2006. “Saul Kripke (1940– ),” in A. P. Martinich and D. Sosa (eds.), A Companion to Analytic Philosophy. Blackwell, Malden, Mass. and Oxford. 466–477.