Interesting post and debate on methodology at Peter Boettke’s blog. See the comments especially. And here is my paper on this subject from 21 years ago.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/7269/hermeneutics-redux/
Hermeneutics Redux
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And here is Murray Rothbard’s “The Hermeneutical Invasion of Philosophy and Economics,” which refers to David Gordon’s essay.
I really do not respect the tone and substance of most of what seem to be the GMU students remarks about LVMI and Rothbard on that blog and that is the primary reason I do not read it.
The vehemence is almost overbearing and I doubt they go into school with such violent emotion and vitriol and thus I must believe it comes from the professors.
You never find such caustic remarks about GMU, the professors, or their work here at the mises blog.
In fact it seems LVMI goes to great lengths to open debate and engage in the issues of the day rather than spew hatred and ad hominems.
I agree, I called them out on it on another thread. It seems many of them are just trolls. Sad. Austrians should remain united, not splinter into pointless groups.
It’s funny. Most people who associate themselves more closely with the GMU branch of Austrian economics say the exact same thing about the people over at LVMI — that they are too dogmatic and uncompromising. I would encourage you to read up on the replies that were posted at Boettke’s blog in response to Salerno’s article on Doherty’s exchange with Pete Boettke.
But in my opinion, these recent events are not to be condemned or deplored. I see them instead as a great cause for celebration. This is how science progresses: vigorous debate over fundamentals. Let us not worry about how arguments are presented (spewed hatred and vehemence) or concern ourselves with just who is making them. We should concentrate on the content of the arguments themselves.
It seems that both branches have been unwilling to engage in these sorts of debates. No theory or argument can ever conclusively be corroborated. In other words, your interpretation of Mises is likely to be wrong. This insight is crucial. We can never know the truth because we do not have access to knowledge from an objective or theory-independent standpoint. All observation is theory-laden and contextual. Therefore, Mises’ claim that wertfrei (value-free) science is the proper way to pursue economics is just flat out wrong.
So if our pursuit of truth is contextual and permanently fallible, how can we ever hope to improve upon it? Popper gives a simple answer: through critical dialogue. We must at all times view things critically and never be afraid to either criticize or accept criticism.
I have not seen a single insult launched against a GMU Austrian in the past 6 months I have been on this blog. I have read the replies on the blog, and my position remains unchanged. I think either side has much to lose from alienating the other.
Further, almost all modern economists accept that economics is value-free. Do you extend your statements to other sciences as well?
Yes, Matthew, I agree, but I have never seen constructive criticism on that blog with regard to Rothbard or LVMI (except perhaps by Dr. Horwitz, Dr. White, and Dr. Boettke), especially on the Salerno post, only petty arguments without substance by those students who go through the GMU program.
Anthony,
How can economics possibly be value-free if the people who practice it must make observations which are guided by theoretical presuppositions?
We cannot infer universal truths about the world by blindly performing scientific observations. As Popper put it, “we do not have observations, we make observations.” Theory cannot be separated from human action; it takes human initiative to develop and comprehend theories. Truth and certainty are not things which exist outside the scope of human action. It enters the picture only when humans impute meaning and value to these concepts. And as I said above, all human action is fallible — even a priori, deductive logic.
It is true that most econoimists insist on distinguishing between scientific statements and normative prescriptions. But the distinction is a false one. Scientific statements are no less fallible, contextual, and theory-laden than normative prescriptions.
I think economists make this distinction because it is professionally convenient. Why did Marx insist that his research program was scientific? Perhaps because he wanted to set himself apart from the Uptopian socialists who were concerned with ideal states and matters of justice. But these considerations played no less role in Marx’s project than it did in the socialist’s.
On the issue of formalism vs. hermeneutics, I believe the following essay by Roderick Long is indispensable:
“Anti-Psychologism in Economics: Wittgenstein and Mises”
Or, if you have time to read an earlier draft of a book by Roderick that will be coming out hopefully sometime in the near future:
Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action
Then how does one pick apart correct from fallacious theories, if even a priori deductive logic is fallible (one must ask what do you mean by that to begin with? is the law of contradiction prone to human error too then?)?
You didn’t answer my question about extending the method to other sciences.
PS: Never mind, I think you answered it implicitly anyway.
I prefer the term ‘value-neutral’ over ‘value-free’.
Matthew, I wonder, if you would reject even ‘value-neutral’.
“We cannot infer universal truths about the world by blindly performing scientific observations.”
Do you think that praxeology amounts to nothing more than “blindly performing scientific observations”?
“It is true that most econoimists insist on distinguishing between scientific statements and normative prescriptions. But the distinction is a false one.”
Nonsense.
“Scientific statements are no less fallible, contextual, and theory-laden than normative prescriptions.”
Your conclusion above is a non sequitur. These three features are not the essential characteristics that distinguish descriptive from normative statements. I say descriptive because I don’t accept your dichotomy between science and ethics.
Anthony,
“Then how does one pick apart correct from fallacious theories, if even a priori deductive logic is fallible (one must ask what do you mean by that to begin with? is the law of contradiction prone to human error too then?)?”
Well, it is fallible because it is human beings doing the deductions. We can make mistakes in our reasoning. This is not controversial among either group of Austrians,at least I don’t think it is.
I want to just comment briefly on Geoffrey’s insightful reply.
I should have used my words more carefully. When I use the word “scientifically” I mean it as it is used in the literature on the philosophy of science. They refer to science as something which is done “objectively” or without personal aims or motives. Metaphysics and subjective considerations are absent in the realm of pure science. To me, there is no distinction. So yes, I would reject the “value-neutral” term.
Praxeology is the study of human action. One cannot do this from a “god’s eye view” so to speak. One studies this from a specific context and within a specific theory.
Geoffrey, I agree that mistakes can be made in deduction. I just wanted to clarify if that was what Matthew meant, or did he take the concept further than that even.
“To me, there is no distinction. So yes, I would reject the “value-neutral” term.”
Given your views it seems like you would then have a rather flimsy claim to science and truth. Just one competing viewpoint among others. Is there any way to tell which are more correct? Or is correct not a word you would accept? How about, which are better? Or is it just a matter of who gets enough people on his side to “win” the debate?
“Praxeology is the study of human action. One cannot do this from a “god’s eye view” so to speak. One studies this from a specific context and within a specific theory.”
Who said anything about a god’s eye view? At least read the first article I linked to.
“One studies this from a specific context and within a specific theory.”
So what? This doesn’t establish the radical subjectivity that hermeneuticists often seem to hold.
Anthony,
“Geoffrey, I agree that mistakes can be made in deduction. I just wanted to clarify if that was what Matthew meant, or did he take the concept further than that even.”
I think he takes it much further.
“So yes, I would reject the “value-neutral” term.”
I don’t think you understood what I meant by value-neutral. It does not mean that the economist doesn’t employ values when he chooses what to study and how to study it. It does not mean that observations are not value-laden or theory-laden. It means that economics and the economist qua economist takes the economic actor’s goals as given and evaluates the means he uses to try to achieve them. It means trying to avoid letting one’s personal ethical beliefs taint the descriptive analysis one is doing. There are, of course, other sciences beyond economics. I even consider ethics to be a science. But I do believe that it is possible for a conscientious scholar to do a reasonable job keeping the different sciences and his different roles in life distinct enough for the purposes of doing economic science.
Geoffrey raises a common concern many have with relativism — what are we to do about truth, or how are we to decide what theories are better than others?
I anticipated this, and provided an answer in my first post. I will quote from it:
“So if our pursuit of truth is contextual and permanently fallible, how can we ever hope to improve upon it? Popper gives a simple answer: through critical dialogue. We must at all times view things critically and never be afraid to either criticize or accept criticism. ”
This was the basis of his entire “critical rationalism” project.
“So if our pursuit of truth is contextual and permanently fallible, how can we ever hope to improve upon it? Popper gives a simple answer: through critical dialogue. We must at all times view things critically and never be afraid to either criticize or accept criticism. ”
That doesn’t really answer my question, Matthew. I’m not sure who would disagree with what you wrote there. The important question is: is truth simply a matter of who has the most people agreeing with him? You mention relativism as if you are an adherent of it. If that is the case, well, I don’t think Popper was a relativist. Indeed, all of this talk about context and value-ladenness and theory-ladenness is a far cry from relativism. None of those things are enough to get you there.
To highlight some of Roderick’s remarks about the problems of taking hermeneutics too far:
It is important, however, not to let the inseparability of praxeology from thymology blind
us to their distinguishability. Lavoie (1986), for example, insists that theory and history
are “two inescapable aspects of what is ultimately one integrated intellectual endeavor.â€
So far so good; this is just what I’ve been arguing. But Lavoie then goes on to draw the
conclusion that we should reject Mises’ doctrine that “no historical account can ever cause
us to go back and reconsider our a priori theory†(196); Lavoie instead maintains that
unless Mises treats the claims of praxeology as falsifiable, “the scientific community has no
responsibility to take him seriously†(202). InWittgenstein’s terms, Lavoie is insisting that
any empirical propositions that are working backstage must appear in the play. “Theory no
less than history involves verstehen,†Lavoie urges (Lavoie 1994:60).Well, yes and no. Yes,
in the sense that there is no praxeology without thymology. No, in the sense that we could
not praxeologize differently by verstehen differently; although there are different ways of verstehen, nothing that did not embody the unchanging principles of praxeology would
count as verstehen at all. So although verstehen may be, as Lavoie says, “historically and
culturally situated,†praxeology is not—at least, not in the sense that changes in historical and
cultural context could work changes in praxeological content. The plot of Hamlet remains
the same regardless of who’s doing what backstage—because the alternative to performing
Hamlet with this plot is not to perform Hamlet differently, but not to perform Hamlet at
all. Nothing that departs from Shakespeare’s story counts as a performance of Hamlet; and
nothing that departs from praxeology’s story counts as a performance of verstehen.
~*~
And now Roderick on excessive formalism:
If, among Austrians, the inseparability of praxeology from thymology is overstated by
Lavoie, Steele, and other adherents of the “interpretive†or “hermeneutical†faction, it is
correspondingly underestimated by the orthodox “formalist†faction. Hoppe (1995), for
example, writes that “the proposition that humans act . . . . is also not derived from observationâ€
because “there are only bodily movements to be observed but no such things as
actions†(22). This remark suggests that our perceptual experience of other people presents
to us only bodily movements, to which we must then apply praxeological concepts in order
to interpret those movements as actions. But in fact our conceptual understanding plays a
constitutive role in our perceptual experience.
Truth is an unattainable concept. It is something which can perhaps be aimed at, but even if we could conceivably grasp it, we very well may not even realize it once we did.
Truth is not static. It is not something existing objectively waiting for us to discover. This is so simply because our knowledge of the world will never be exhaustive. There is always the possibility of novel discovery.
So when trying to decide between different theories, I would argue that we should use that theory which is best able to withstand criticism — that theory which is able to make bold conjectures, and survive attempted refutations. But it is important to keep in mind that these conjectures and refutations will never be conclusive or decisive.
Why are commenter’s assumed to be current or past students of GMU? No one in the discussion that is being referenced is a current or past GMU student. Many current and past GMU students have attended and continue to participate in Mises Institute events.
As for hostilities facing the other direction, look at the comments on the recent Caplan / Stringham working paper mises blog post. I wouldn’t attribute those comments to the Mises Institute. They are the opinions of the commenter’s. Nothing more and nothing less, though I do believe that they fail the standards of civil and intelligent that the MisesBlog requests.
The bottom line is that there is one PhD economics university in the United States that uses the works of Mises and Rothbard: GMU.
Dr. D’Amico,
You know better than that.
I don’t find anything wrong with the comments on the Caplan/Stringham paper blog post.
They are certainly much more tame than the fodder found in the comments section of Dr. Boettke’s blog with regard to Rothbard or LVMI.
Samuel,
The question is again. Who is making the comments? You seem willing to accuse anonymous posters on Boettke’s blog of being GMU students or specifically students of Boettke. There’s not that many of us at any given time and as best to my knowledge we all use our real names when we post. I for example always post under my name and don’t see much point in posting anonymously. You’re not willing to attribute anonymous Mises posters as LVMI employees and neither am I because it is a silly assumption to make.
James,
I’m not a Dr. yet, nor do I know what you’re trying to imply.
matthew,
“Truth is an unattainable concept.”
I don’t know about this statement. If one successfully rises to the task of making an apparently a priori truth statement, such as that one, doesn’t that imply truth is a concept that has been attained? I think your statement is in fact a contradiction and is therefore false. Truth is an attainable concept.
“It is something which can perhaps be aimed at, but even if we could conceivably grasp it, we very well may not even realize it once we did.”
But have we realized that you have grasped a truth in the statements you make here? If so, it is apparently false. If not, then your statements may be quite false and at least meaningless.
“Truth is not static.”
And yet is not this truth that you propose here an unchanging one? Or is truth sometimes static and sometimes not?
“It is not something existing objectively waiting for us to discover.”
And yet is this statement not yet again another proposition claiming objective a priori truth that your intellect has discovered via the application of reason? If so it is again a contradiction. If not, it is worthless static.
“This is so simply because our knowledge of the world will never be exhaustive. There is always the possibility of novel discovery.”
This seems true in some cases, or at least is not a blatant contradiction.
“So when trying to decide between different theories, I would argue that we should use that theory which is best able to withstand criticism — that theory which is able to make bold conjectures, and survive attempted refutations.”
And foremost, avoid presenting propositions representing internal inconsistencies and contradictions as most of your statements have done here. They certainly cannot survive refutation.
“But it is important to keep in mind that these conjectures and refutations will never be conclusive or decisive.”
Yet this particular conclusion you draw here claims a priori truth for itself. Yet at the same time its contents indicate no such conclusion can ever be so decisive. Another contradiction.
But I agree with an important point you make: go with the theory that is best able to withstand criticism. I’m just not satisfied with the reasoning you use to get to it.
Geoffrey,
“This remark suggests that our perceptual experience of other people presents to us only bodily movements, to which we must then apply praxeological concepts in order to interpret those movements as actions. But in fact our conceptual understanding plays a constitutive role in our perceptual experience.”
I disagree. Our eyes don’t see actions. They see changing colors arranged in various patterns; w/c we interpret to be actions (even though it’s instantaneous).
I am not convinced by this recent Gadamer mania. What Austrian economics needs is more intellectual and scientific rigor, not less.
Economics is a positive science after all. Those who want to pursue literary ambitions – which is quite respectable – should look up different places.
The content of my argument does not absolve (or immunize) me from the premises I have articulated in presenting this relativist, anti-foundationalist theory.
So my statement that “truth is unattainable” is just as fallible and conjectural as “human action is purposeful” or “logically consistent a priori deduction is apodictic”.
I never claimed certainty in these statements. But for knowledge to progress, bold conjectures must be made. Most relativists are not hopeless nihilists. For conjectures to be vindicated or corroborated, however, attempted refutations must be made. I have made a statement. Truth is unattainable. This statement will never conclusively be verified. Nor will cogent refutations. But gradually, in a critical environment, the strength of one’s argument will improve as critical dialogue gives rise to certain changes. I think the real advantage post-modernists have in this respect is that they are critical of everything — nothing is sacred (not even Mises!) Before reading up on some of these philosophers, I considered Mises’ praxeology sacrosanct — to question it was treason. This is the wrong approach. It does nothing to contribute to future growth. Poor Hayek had to restrain himself for years, waiting only after Mises died before he began questioning Mises’ methodology. This is a shame. Never be afraid to criticize! This can most easily be done if one starts with the assumption that everything is probably false, even the assumption itself!
“Truth is not static. It is not something existing objectively waiting for us to discover. This is so simply because our knowledge of the world will never be exhaustive. There is always the possibility of novel discovery.”
So the statement “a thing exists and does not exist at a given point in time” should be taken as tentative, and not a flat out contradiction?
“So when trying to decide between different theories, I would argue that we should use that theory which is best able to withstand criticism — that theory which is able to make bold conjectures, and survive attempted refutations. But it is important to keep in mind that these conjectures and refutations will never be conclusive or decisive. ”
Fine, but on what basis do we accept or reject a criticism or a refutation?
“Never be afraid to criticize!”
If someone tries to criticize that 1 + 1 = 2, I will not take them seriously, sorry. It is perfectly fine to criticize Mises, and improve upon him where necessary (Geoffrey, for instance, has written papers suggesting a move away from Mises’s Kantian apriorism.) Criticism for the sake of criticism though is pointless. And Hayek was confused towards the end of his life.
Ludwig, I agree wholeheartedly.
Daniel, doesn’t NYU also teach Mises and Rothbard? I think Harvard also has some Austrian professors, but it has no specifically Austrian classes, unfortunately.
criticism for its own sake is not at all pointless! There have been great contributions to the field of mathematics from philosophers who sought to criticize it in the hopes of improving it. I refer you to the (in)famous Godel’s theorem, by Kurt Godel.
Relativists have had a field day with this, and just shows that nothing (not even mathematics) is perfect.
As I understand it, all Godël’s Theorem states is that it’s possible to construct a logical statement which cannot be proved either true or false. This does not mean that no statement can be proved true or false — the vast majority of statements can still be proved within any given logical framework.
The relativists seem to be using an entirely different approach. Within standard integer mathematics, 1+1=2 is provably true. A relativist would question not the proof itself, I think, but rather whether the concepts of addition and equality apply consistently to the real world. In other words, they’d acknowledge that 1+1=2 is true in mathematics, but allow for the possibility that the combination of one unit of a substance and another unit of the substance might not always be two units of that substance — which is not unreasonable, since physical interactions are often non-linear.
A relativist wouldn’t question whether praxeology is true per se, but rather whether it’s relevant — whether the underlying axioms correspond to the real world.
Below is my latest response to Pete Boettke on the Austrian Economists blog at http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2007/10/rush-to-philoso.html?cid=85417042#comment-85417042
Pete
You write: “Joe — we really shouldn’t be engaged in our own version of “fight club”. As a scholar I am asked to make judgments, as are you. It is my considered judgment that you are challenging. You are entitled, though I am not sure you are justified in your characterization of my statements.”
Fight club is an inapt and insulting metaphor for our exchange. You made the categorical statement that “Don Lavoie understood Mises better than all but two other Austrian economists (Israel Kirzner and Richard Ebeling).” You provided absolutely no evidence or argument to support what many Austrians would consider a very controversial statement. It was thus not a “considered judgment” but a “pontification” in Webster’s sense of “an opinion expressed in a dogmatic or pompous way.” The reader was supposed to accept it on faith and without question. Well I questioned: I asked you a series of reasonable questions about how you arrived at your conclusion and you have refused to answer. My response was completely impersonal, and I was not trying to pick a fight with you. Had Garrison or Huelsmann or White or even Rothbard made a similar pronouncement, I would have posed the same series of questions. Challenging and being challenged intellectually by other scholars, including one’s friends, in an aggressive manner is part of the the process of the scientific truth seeking process and is not to be taken personally. No one is above ctriticism on any topic no matter how many articles he has published in mainstream journals. As Mises wrote in this regard: “Man is not infallible. He searches for truth. . . . Man can never become omniscient. He can never be absolutely certain that his inquiries were not misled and that what he considers as certain truth is not error. All that man can do is submit all his theories again and again to the most critical reexamination.” Austrian economics does not need a pope who refuses to explain or debate his utterances. It needs humble scolars carrying on their work and willing to engage in the rough and tumble of academic debate withour fear or favor toward anyone.
Later in the same post you write: “But you know all those journal articles and book chapters you complained about for being methodological, they were mostly about Mises and his position on methodology and method etc.” But I never “complained about” any of your methodological articles. Nor did I attempt to judge their quality, because I have not read any of them. I merely totaled them up and revealed that you have published more methodological articles since the year 2000 than 13 other Austrian economists have published collectively in their entire careers. My point, which you apparently missed or do not care to engage, was to demonstrate your inconsistency in criticizing “us” Austrian economists for concentrating so narrowly on methodology. I have never complained about methodological research. Unlike you, I have never proposed strategic research agenda for other Austrians to follow which would enable them to achieve acceptance by the mainstream.
I hope this is taken in the collegial spirit in which it was intended.
matthew,
“So my statement that ‘truth is unattainable’ is just as fallible and conjectural as ‘human action is purposeful’ or ‘logically consistent a priori deduction is apodictic’.”
Then we have no reason to bother with your statement, beyond the obvious observation that man isn’t infallible abd omniscient.
You have in no way shown that the action axiom, for example, is false. And we have provided excellent reasons — because its denial is a performative contradiction — why it must be true. Saying, “you could be wrong” or “man is fallible” isn’t an argument against the truth of the action axiom. And saying “truth is unattainable” is just another problematic unsatisfactory performative contradiction (really? then why should we believe tgat statement?).
“criticism for its own sake is not at all pointless! There have been great contributions to the field of mathematics from philosophers who sought to criticize it in the hopes of improving it.”
Then it isn’t just criticism for its own sake, is it?
Just to make something clear to some on this list. I don’t see ANY GMU students on The Austrian Economists blog comments. At least none that I would recognize. I put a plea out that anonymous comments be stopped. But as far as I know none of our current or past students have posted a comment.
I think a lot of priors people hold should be questioned (perhaps mine as well) about the reality of the situation.
As I have repeatedly stressed, many of these claims are empirical claims that are easily verified by an examination of the facts.
Pete
Well, Dr. Boettke it seems quite amazing and coincidental then that some folks have found your blog and have such hatred for the Mises Institute and Dr. Rothbard and seem to have found a vehicle to express their opinion on your website.
It is quite unfortunate.
I’ll agree with Mike. I doubt they’re GMU Austrians of any real sort. Perhaps just individuals disgruntled by the LVMI for whatever reason.
In addition to the several publications that have already been mentioned in this posting, I believe Murray Rothbard’s “The Present State of Austrian Economicsâ€, which was presented in 1992 and appears in the collection “The Logic of Action Oneâ€, discusses several issues of relevance.
I would also add that a number of topics in this posting, to one degree or another, involve the impact on and the position of Murray Rothbard in the Austrian School of Economics and Libertarianism.
I have to admit that Dr. Gordon knows his hermeneutics: at the end of his 1986 paper, he zeroes in on the aspect of it that I was impressed with: harmony between subject and explanation. “Just as the study of insane people need not consist of mad propositions, the study of actors using imperfect knowledge need not resemble its subject matter.”
By my own reading, the opposite contention make Heideggerian hermeneutics conservative. What attracted me to its charms was a possible way to get out of the self-refutation trap: a hermeneutically sound principle is one that explains itself as well as other propositions. The criticism that Dr. Gordon advanced, though, suggests that I fell in love with the tool, so to speak.
Also, Heideggerain hermeneutics is a kind of ontology, whose root is an justification of the Aristotelian axiom “existence exists” without recourse to the dialectical refutation. Its own origin is this set of related questions, broached by Aristotle, “why is it that being [or "existence"] is the only legitimate concept with no genus? Why is the human faculty of differentiation and integration defeated in the attempt to understand Existence? Why does a definition of Being amount to a tautology when put in a form that normal humans understand?” The connection between these questions and economics is, I aver, quite an indirect one.
@Ludwig van den Hauwe:
I had hopes of a similar nature when taken up by the work of Whitehead and Russell. ‘Tis already been done with respect to informal logic, where the mainstream position, as of the early 1990s (at the earliest), is that formal deductivism serves as the “kernel,” or backbone, of statements made in informal logic.
The trouble with formalizing Mises’ informal deductivist system, though, is that the necessary theoretical tools are damned tricky. Anyone that would have the brass to attempt to do a Principa Mathematica-type jobbie on Mises/Rothbard praxeology would have to, at the very least, know his/her modal logic cold.
Also needed is a detachment from the probability-as-metaphor custom – the one that says that long chains of reasoning become proportionately more brittle as the number of inferences increases. The only way to make sense of this, if you know your probability, is: “each conclusion is a class whose referents are n existents, that includes x referents, which the conclusion correctly matches to, and y false positives. Both x and y have to sum to n. The probability of any inference being true, p(T), is equal to x/n, and the probability of any inference being false, p(F), is equal to y/n. p(T) + p(F) = 1, as x/n + y/n = (x+y)/n, and (x + y) = n by definition, so (x+y)/n = n/n = 1 except in the trivial case of n equaling zero, but this case imples a statement with no referents – blather, in other words.” Fleshing out the positivist criticism in this way makes its own assumption plain: “there is no such thing as a deductively valid conclusion that does not contain a possible – perhaps unknown but definitely existent – non sequitur” – which is a helluvan assumption to make.
There are other stumbling blocks, of which I am likely to be unaware. If you ever choose to go down that path…lotsa luck.
See also Hoppe’s related articles on hermeneutics, Lavoie, McCloskey, etc.
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