What Empiricism Can't Tell Us, and Rationalism Can
According to the empiricist, writes Mark Crovelli, nothing about the social world can be known with apodictic certainty. Progress in science must take the same form as with natural science, in this view. But there is an alternative view, namely rationalism. The rationalist epistemology starts from the assumption that man can know at least some things about his world with absolute certainty. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (84)
I understand that praxeology rests on the axiom: "Man acts."
But how do we get from there to the following: "Every action is aimed at improving the actor's subjective well-being above what it otherwise would have been."
It is not obvious to me that it follows from the stated axiom. Can anyone explain in more depth?
Published: January 26, 2006 9:08 AM
Fried Egg-
If an actor does not believe that an action will improve "the actor's subjective well-being above what it otherwise would have been.", then the actor will not act (atleast in that fashion). Therefore, every action improves the actor's subjective well-being.
CC
Published: January 26, 2006 9:29 AM
Correction, every action is _aimed_ at improving the actor.
CC
Published: January 26, 2006 9:30 AM
Fantastic article, concise and to the point.
Published: January 26, 2006 9:56 AM
CC,
I'm sorry but I still do not see how it follows. I'm not saying I disagree with it personally. But it does not appear to be deductively valid.
Given the self-evident axiom that "man acts", it does not follow that "all actions are intended to improve the actor's well being".
Other assumptions must be introduced in order for that to follow. Something like "Man is inherently and exclusively self interested".
Published: January 26, 2006 10:04 AM
Fried Egg,
If by exclusively self-interested, you mean there are no benevolent actions, you are wrong. Austrians consider well-being to be a broad concept, not something narrow as egoists would have it. If a husband sacrafices his life to save the life of his wife, then, from his perspective, that increases his "well-being", because his wife doesn't die; this, despite the common usage of the word in which we might say, "he sacraficed his well-being for her".
Published: January 26, 2006 10:08 AM
Mises actually discusses precisely this in quite some depth in Human Action.
Published: January 26, 2006 10:15 AM
David,
I do not thinks it makes any difference to my point that some other additional axiom(s) are needed to make the statement deductively valid.
Published: January 26, 2006 10:29 AM
No additional axioms are necessary, at least not of the kind you are thinking of, Fried Egg. It is implicit in the concept of action that man acts for substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs. Keep in mind that action implies a means-end framework. Action is performed, the means, in order to attain some end. It is inconceivable that someone would act in order to attain some end that was not preferred in this way. The obvious objection to this rests upon a failure to consider the relevant alternatives to someone's action. For example, I may prefer reading a good sci-fi novel to grading exams, but my choice to grade exams does not reveal a preference for a less satisfactory state of affairs; rather, I prefer grading exams to being unemployed, destitute, and without the means to purchase my sci-fi novels, among other thigns. Tue same sort of analysis still holds even when force is added into the equation, as in having to give up a wallet to a thief.
Published: January 26, 2006 10:58 AM
To say that all political science epistemology debates revolve around variants of induction is absurd. Deduction has been the primary method of progress in IR, for example, since Waltz's 1979 Theory of International Politics. J. David Singer still has some acolytes but the primacy of theory is becoming increasingly obvious as research grows in rigor (see Mesquita, Krasner, Jervis, Gartzke, etc). A growing number stress the inherent unpredictability of complex adaptive systems. And game theory and rational-choice institutionalism, two formal methods that cut across political subfields, are completely deductive in their approach. No first-class political scientist working today would admit to using induction for theory-building.
Published: January 26, 2006 11:39 AM
It is misleading at best to consider the rational choice methodology, game theoretic, or any other "formal theory" in political science as deductive methods. As I state in the article, these methods DO NOT start from axiomatic propositions, and then proceed to deduce the logical implications of the axioms. Instead, these methods employ hypothetical propositions as the foundation of their theories, from which they deduce logically implied propositions. These methods simply cannot be considered anti-empiricist, however, since their entire superstucture rests upon HYPOTHETICAL first principles. These first principles might be right or might be wrong-- only empirical observation could be utilize to demonstrate their validity. And indeed, theorists in these schools do go out in the world to look for empirical confirmation for their theories. As an example, I might come up with a hypothesis that man can fly. I could then deduce all of the logical implications of this hypothesis (like, transportation costs would be lower, ceteris paribus, in a world where man can fly than they would be in a world where man cannot fly). This by no means proves that my original hypothesis is correct.
Published: January 26, 2006 12:32 PM
Interesting response, but I'm afraid we're assuming totally different ontological principles.
A deductive axiom is neither true nor false since it is a conscious simplification of reality, an abstraction designed to give us greater purchase on reality. Thus neoclassic economics assume that actors maximize utility - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. The assumption is needed in order to create theories of the market.
A non-inductionist social science theory such as that cannot be easily falsified, since we cannot isolate the effect of one variable on another (like we can in natural science experiments). Therefore theory development proceeds not by proving or disproving the theory, but by replacing it with a better one. This is the Lakatosian method of sophisticated methodological falsification, as you probably know. In the development of deductive theory, empiricism (in other words, external validity) takes a backseat to axiomatic logic that lies outside of any reality (i.e. internal consistency).
Therefore to say that theory starts with hypothetical principles is wrong. Theory starts with deductive axioms (again, independent of reality) which then produce testable hypotheses (notice, that’s the second step) which we can then TRY to test against empirical facts in the real world, bearing in mind Goethe’s warning that “every fact is already a theory�. In other words, empiricism is important for the testing of deductive of social science theories, but certainly not for their development, and even when used properly theory testing can be largely inconclusive.
Published: January 26, 2006 1:56 PM
"For example, the overthrow of the then dominant behaviorist/positivist epistemology and methodology in the middle third of the twentieth century..."
What overthrow? Behaviorism (i.e. eliminativism) and analytic philosophy (which is the birthchild of positivism) are common views, and are endorsed by a substantial portion of today's philosophical community. Does this guy read any journals? I guess Sellars, Dennett, Paul/Patricia Churchland, Rorty, Ryle ... and dozens upon dozens of other philosophers should be ignored.
Published: January 26, 2006 2:01 PM
It's funny how many people pretend not to be aware (or agree with) all these fundamental axioms of which, of course, we are innately apprised.
Published: January 26, 2006 2:06 PM
Unisonus, I'm continually amazed by just how complicated people make their arguments, searching for some germ of terminology that might possibly be something maybe to disagree with.
But then, I was not brought up with the Talmud.
The "Austrian" method won me over by the simple statement that all intervention burdens the "market", reducing efficiency. This simple restatement of Jefferson's "The government that governs least governs best" is so overwhelming as to make all the rest of the "Austrian" materials seem to me to be supporting evidence of this observation. Regardless of the path taken, the field or level of investigation, the conclusions come back to the same point.
Published: January 26, 2006 2:19 PM
Fried Egg, it just occurred to me to ask, if you read this forum again, just when do you act such that you are deliberately making youself less satisfied? When you choose between exercise and icecream, why do you choose one and not the other?
Of course, the core of the question is, it is even possible to choose such that you are less "well off" since at that instant you may desire the short-term gain of flavor verses the short-term pain of exercise, or in the next instant may prefer the reverse? Trading labor for wages is done simply to provide us with the opportunity to make that choice at all, a means to the end of creating another means.
This is why both Mises and Geoffrey Allan Plauche use the term "
Published: January 26, 2006 2:28 PM
Fried Egg, it just occurred to me to ask, if you read this forum again, just when do you act such that you are deliberately making youself less satisfied? When you choose between exercise and icecream, why do you choose one and not the other?
Of course, the core of the question, is it even possible to choose such that you believe yourself to be less "well off" since at that instant of the choice you may desire the short-term gain of flavor verses the short-term pain of exercise, or in the next instant may prefer the reverse? Trading labor for wages is done simply to provide us with the opportunity to make that choice at all, a means to the end of creating another means.
This is why both Mises and Geoffrey Allan Plauche above use the term "inconceivable" when talking about the idea of someone acting in a way they perceive as negative. Even someone with a gun pointed to their head prefers to obey rather than to have the trigger pulled. (Or not, but that too is an individual preference at that instant)
Man Acts. Otherwise, Man DOES NOT ACT. Once the choice of acting is made, it is because the action is preferred over NOT acting, regardless of the action, at the instant the action is initiated.
Published: January 26, 2006 2:34 PM
Aves, I'm afraid I will have to take issue once again with your argument for the simple reason that you unwittingly employ a priori propositions in the course of your exposition. What, for example, is the epistemological status of your claim that "A deductive axiom is neither true nor false since it is a conscious simplification of reality, an abstraction designed to give us greater purchase on reality"? Is this proposition true, or is it false, and how do you know it to be true or false? Clearly, this proposition claims universal validity (if it doesn't then what good is it?), and as such, it purports to be an a priori proposition.
Moreover, the axioms employed by the Austrians are most emphatically not abstractions or simplifications. They are, rather, propositions know to be necessarily true of all human action (in the case of the general axioms of action, e.g., "human action is purposive"), or conditionally true of human action whenever certain conditions obtain (e.g., "an increase in the money supply will, ceteris paribus, lead to an increase in prices"). These are not abstractions from reality or simplifications (in the empiricist sense), nor are they models. They describe categories of action, and they ACTUALLY apply to the real world of acting men without any empirical substantiation or further theoretical elaboration.
Published: January 26, 2006 3:03 PM
Aves,
Is your statement “A deductive axiom is neither true nor false�, a deductive axiom? Is it always true or sometimes false or always not true and also always not false? If it always true, then it contradicts itself and so it can’t be true. If it is sometimes or always false, then it becomes less than a useful statement.
“since it is a conscious simplification of reality, an abstraction designed to give us greater purchase on reality.�
Praxeology does not depend on unrealistic assumptions. It starts with statements that are necessarily and indisputably true such as “A is A� or “man acts�; they are not simplifications; they are complete truths based in reality and things apprehended intellectually.
“Thus neoclassic economics assume that actors maximize utility - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. The assumption is needed in order to create theories of the market.�
I can’t speak for neoclassic economists, but the Austrians state that actors necessarily act always ex ante with the intent of improving their condition. Always. This is true regardless of how well they deem they have accomplished this goal ex post.
Therefore praxeology is based on indisputable truths and deductively arrives further, at indisputable conclusions. It turns out you can know profound practical things that are necessarily true and empirical evidence can’t be used to successfully refute such knowledge.
Published: January 26, 2006 4:12 PM
Goethe’s warning: “every fact is already a theory�
I love this stuff: Is his warning a fact or just a theory? Is it indisputably true? Assuming it is means it is not a theory and is instead a fact and, oops, also a contradiction; and so it must be false. If more people had read Aristotle it would have saved us all some confusion.
Published: January 26, 2006 4:29 PM
Fried Egg is not disagreeing with the proposition that "all actions are intended to improve the actor's well being". He asked "how is it deduced?" So far I don't see an answer. That's not surprising, considering the claim.
Published: January 26, 2006 4:48 PM
"Man acts" is not a necessary truth. It is not meaningless or contradictory to state that "a man does not act".
Published: January 26, 2006 4:53 PM
Unisonus,
“Behaviorism … and analytic philosophy … are common views, and are endorsed by a substantial portion of today's philosophical community.�
What they lack in logical coherence and their own self-contradiction these philosophies make up for in consensus.
Published: January 26, 2006 5:11 PM
‘"Man acts" is not a necessary truth.’
It is. It is also an undeniable truth. To deny that man acts is to engage in a performative contradiction. Argumentation is purposeful action. It is the use of means to obtain an end: it is speaking or writing to persuade. To state “Man does not act� is in itself an act. You cannot argue that man does not act, without acting and hence without contradiction.
Published: January 26, 2006 5:40 PM
The insistence on linking Austrian economics with this kind of theory of rationalism doesn't do it any favors. No philosopher of science since the 1960s has supported the form of naive empiricism that a small group of Austrians suggest is the mainstream view of how science works. But these philosophers certainly don't suggest scientists should fall back on finding justification in self-evident truths. Rather, the theories of most modern philosophers of science, generally based on such ideas as that of the underdetermination of theory by evidence, offer a good explanation of why facts that seem self-evident only from a particular perspective may seem to the people who view them from that perspective as being necessarily true, i.e. as necessarily self-evident to all right-thinking people. What is important is that facts be true, not that they be arrived at in some strange, anachronistic way!
Published: January 26, 2006 6:58 PM
It seems clear to me that "all actions are intended to improve the actor's well being" is itself the axiom, and does not follow from anything, either by being self-evident or by assumption.
Published: January 26, 2006 6:58 PM
"The insistence on linking Austrian economics with this kind of theory of rationalism doesn't do it any favors."
Now why do you say that CMB? And who would really care what the philosophers of science were up to. One hopes they have their act together. But we would have to judge them on their own merits.
Published: January 26, 2006 7:46 PM
Paul Edwards,
"It is. It is also an undeniable truth."
It certainly can be denied, it just shouldn't be denied.. Just as I shouldn't deny that the President is George Bush or that copper expands when heated. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But neither of these propositions are necessary truths. Of course, "man acts". But this doesn't have to be the case. The idea of "man" does not ential that he "acts". It's an obervation that we make about "men" (about some of them, since there are men that don't act at all).
"What they lack in logical coherence and their own self-contradiction these philosophies make up for in consensus."
It's indecent to make sweeping accusations without backing them up.
Published: January 26, 2006 7:47 PM
Unisonus
"What overthrow? Behaviorism (i.e. eliminativism) and analytic philosophy (which is the birthchild of positivism) are common views, and are endorsed by a substantial portion of today's philosophical community."
To which I would say "Who the hell cares". Did you start reading these journals on the basis that these were smart guys doing reasonable work? In any case you ought not hide behind them. Make your own argument and see if it stands.
Published: January 26, 2006 8:06 PM
"Man acts" is not a necessary truth.
So sayeth Unisonus. What on earth are you talking about fella. When a gentleman is sleeping perhaps? When he's in an iron lung? When he's conducting a hunger strike?
You could never get any model together if you went about trying to quibble with some of the most obvious truths one can find.
Looks like you've been taken in by a bunch of dumb-leftist philosphers. We need not assume that (lets say) philosophers and physicists are any more scientific then journalists and politicians. Especially not nowadays when most of them are on the public tit.
Published: January 26, 2006 8:12 PM
Unisonus,
Huh, what are you talking about? According to you, "man acts" isn't a necessary truth?
There is something important to grasp here. Saying, "man acts" is not some kind of necessary truth in and of itself; e.g., there is no internal contradiction about the statement, "man does not act". And it wouldn't be absurd for some Martian to try to make the claim that "man does not act" (perhaps a better, and more generalizeable, form of this would be, "actors act").
However, given that you are a man, saying that "man does not act" is contradictory; that statement is contradicted by the fact that you, a man, are taking an action in saying "man does not act". Anyone who says "man does not act" is in fact acting, and thus is involved in a logical contradiction. As , Kant argued note that axioms are
"self-evident because one cannot deny their truth without self-contradiction; that is, in attempting to deny them one would actually, implicitly, admit their truth."
Extending this, Hoppe explains, Mises realized that
"Causality...is a category of action. To act means to interfere at some earlier point in time in order to produce some later result, and thus every actor must presuppose the existence of constantly operating causes. Causality is a prerequisite of acting, as Mises puts it."
Published: January 26, 2006 8:37 PM
CMB
"The answer is that it's a bad theory and loses Austrian economists credibility."
No it isn't bad theory. It stands out like a sore thumb as amongst the only good theory out there. That's what gobsmacked me about it when I discovered this site.
Who would the Austrians be worried about sucking up to here? The idea is to do the best work you can and not worry about impressions as to credibility amongst people who might not themselves be credible.
Who are these arbiters of credibility that you speak of. Are these the same sort of nutballs that got taken in by Keynesianism.
The fact is if they are so useless as not to see the superior nature of most of what the Austrians have done then you ought to be looking a bit closer at their credibility.
Whoever these people you have in mind are.
Most likely just some Joes submitting articles to philosophy magazines. Is that who you are thinking of?
Published: January 26, 2006 8:51 PM
"It ["man acts"] certainly can be denied" says Unisonus. How, Unisonus? If a man says "I deny it", he is acting - thus proving his denial false. In what way is it conceivable to you that it can be denied?
Published: January 26, 2006 8:58 PM
CMB sez:
"You also asked why we should care what philosophers of science write. The answer is that, since thinking about theory formation and scientific methodology is what they do as a job, they may have something valuable to add."
Well they may do. On the other hand they may be a bunch of crypto-Marxist ratbags. Here you make an assumption. Its an OK assumption. Its not anywhere near as sound an assumption as the one that says "Man Acts". And its not an assumption that you need be wedded to.
If you find one of these blokes who appears to be particularly reliable do let us know. But in general you might not want to hide behind the reputation of these clowns. Particularly not when we take them as a group.
Published: January 26, 2006 9:00 PM
I just want to give you all an example, from out of left field, of the sort of mindlessness that occurs when scientists don't have the Mises-like emphasis on a priori thinking........
In the last three and a half million years we have had more then twenty glaciations interspersed by interglacial periods. The problem is that the horrid iced-over periods last 60 000 to 100 000 years and the interglacials usually last from 6000 to 10 000 years.
Except for this last one. Which has probably been unnaturally lengthened by Mans discovery of fire and his tendency to burn down the forests wherever he goes.
What's behind these oscillations are the Milankovitch cycles. And the Milankovitch cycles tell us we are heading into a new glaciation.
Now a priori we would have to assume then that the release of CO2 was a good thing. And that we should get as much ice melted off as we can. We should get as much ice melted off to buy time so that if the white death starts up again we have more time to deal with it.
But is that the message we are getting from these public-tit-science-workers masquerading as scientists?
No it is not. They have to look at emulating the Austrians and not the other way around.
Published: January 26, 2006 9:14 PM
Unisonus,
“It's indecent to make sweeping accusations without backing them up.�
I’ll grant you it’s not necessarily all that convincing, but indecent?
I wonder if I could win this challenge: I am willing to bet this: no one can present one single paragraph of description of Behaviorism by a noted proponent of it that we here couldn’t point out at least one self-contradictory statement in it.
These irrational philosophies depend on consensus because their justification is unintelligible and laced with contradiction. There: I’ve thrown the gauntlet. :)
Published: January 26, 2006 9:39 PM
Paul Edwards,
Re: your challenge, I think you are certain to fail. In order to even address the position of the behaviorist, you'd have to assume that he actually meant the words he wrote. You can't assume this without presupposing that the behaviorist view is in error, so you'd be presupposing your intended conclusion. Not that I think your position is wrong. You just "can't get to there from here."
Published: January 26, 2006 10:34 PM
There seems to be a grave inconsistency in the harshness at which we judge assumptions. Dumb-leftists are making all sorts of assumptions all the time. But when someone who disagrees with them says something like "Man Acts" out comes the microscope and the long-winded sophistry.
Published: January 26, 2006 11:10 PM
Hi James,
If i'm catching your drift, it is in fact similar, but the inverse, to the tack i expect to take: assume the given statement is true, and show it to be in contradiction with its thesis. Since a contradiction is necessarily false, it shows the statement to be necessarily false. It's a simple and fun exercise in deductive logic.
Published: January 27, 2006 12:16 AM
It ceases to be less fun as the years drag on and the fallacies are repeated ad nauseum.
Published: January 27, 2006 12:20 AM
Goodness me. I meant to say: It ceases to be fun..
Published: January 27, 2006 12:22 AM
Geoffrey Allan Plauche,
"No additional axioms are necessary, at least not of the kind you are thinking of, Fried Egg. It is implicit in the concept of action that man acts for substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs."
If that is implicitly assumed, it should be explicitly stated. What is the use of saying all the principles of Austrian economics derive from this one axiom when there are others that are not made explicit?
Published: January 27, 2006 3:32 AM
"Man acts" is not a necessary truth. It is not meaningless or contradictory to state that "a man does not act".
Show me a man who does not act, and I'll show you a man who is in a coma, dying (most likely of starvation), or dead. That the degree of a man's actions may vary does not change the axiom. A man who turns on the television is still acting just as a man who is moving to another city for a new job is acting. Every action certainly does not have to be dramatically life-changing or revolutionary.
Published: January 27, 2006 9:16 AM
Fried,
An implication isn't an assumption, it's an essential connection. When Geoffrey says "implied", he means we intellectually apprehend that an inherent characteristic of all men is that they use means to achieve ends and we simply call this fact Action. We could say "man UsesMeansToAchieveEnds", but for short we say "man Acts".
Published: January 27, 2006 9:58 AM
Fried Egg, Paul Edwards is right. Just because a whole host of meaning is implied in the simple axiom "man acts" does not mean that this implicit meaning is some sort of hidden assumptions or additional axioms. It's not as if some or all of the wealth of meaning in the axiom "man acts" is somehow independent of the axiom. To say that "man acts" is simply to say that man employs various means to achieve chosen ends, ends which he prefers because they substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a lesser.
By the way, just for clarity, "man acts" is an axiom, "actin" is an axiomatic concept.
Also, if you read Mises and Rothbard, you'll see that they point out that the entire body of Austrian economics is not drawn solely from the action axiom. There are also a few empirical subsidiary postulates.
Published: January 27, 2006 11:32 AM
I concur that "Man acts" and that "Every action is aimed at improving the actor's subjective well-being…� These are known a priori, for to hold otherwise is to act and to aim at improving one’s subjective well-being. However, there is an issue as to how to interpret these propositions. In my view they are necessary categories of thought, to be employed in interpreting experience. When we see a man in a coma, or behaving in an arbitrary manner, we conclude by definition that he is not ‘acting’. In other words *the meaning of the propositions is that of necessarily truthful axioms*, which do not have to apply to particular activities. Thus, a creature might not be a man, or if so, might not be engaged in action, without at all contradicting the proposition that man acts, and does so for his improvement.
The above addressed the synthetic a priori as forming the necessary categories of thought for examining human behavior. Let us consider by analogy the analytic a priori. Here, a number-line is the model for a ruler, which in turn is applied to an imperfectly straight tabletop. There is then a question as to whether or to what extent the number-line models the ruler, and to whether or to what extent the ruler measures the tabletop. In any event, the analytic a priori contains categories of analysis which are necessary, for to refute them would require a similar form of analysis.
I hope that the above has clarified the difference between viewing the a priori (analytic & synthetic) as the necessary categories of thought, in contrast with how they do or do not model the world and man. It remains an empirical task to determine whether or not the reality conforms to the a priori model. Note that a statement such as "The government that governs least governs best" can be viewed as conforming to an a priori model growing out of what we know of the nature of man, or as an a posteriori conclusion derived from evidence. In the former, we are operating from the model, while in the latter, operating from the evidence. The model and the reality may be quite similar, but they are not identical.
Thus I concur with Paul Edwards (and implicitly with Mark Crovelli) that “praxeology is based on indisputable truths and deductively arrives further, at indisputable conclusions. It turns out you can know profound practical things that are necessarily true and empirical evidence can’t be used to successfully refute such knowledge.� My sole qualification is that in any particular instance, such indisputable truths might not correspond to the reality addressed (e.g., a mother might not seek some presumed economic advantage, when dealing with her son, because she seeks some other subjective gain, or a country might forego economic gain, due to a pursuit of altruism.) Nonetheless, the a priori categories are undeniable and unavoidable.
When Unisonus writes " "Man acts" is not a necessary truth. It is not meaningless or contradictory to state that "a man does not act" � he is speaking about the conflict between the a priori category of thought and a particular reality to which it need not apply. However, this cannot contradict the apodictic certainty that “Man acts� for as has been noted, Unisonus has in fact exemplified acting by his writing.
Published: January 27, 2006 1:12 PM
David Heinrich and Paul Edwards,
---"However, given that you are a man, saying that "man does not act" is contradictory; that statement is contradicted by the fact that you, a man, are taking an action in saying "man does not act".�---
---�If a man says "I deny it", he is acting - thus proving his denial false.�---
First of all, both of you are using the term “contradiction� in an unorthodox way. If I say “p� even though there is good evidence that “not p� – I haven’t made a contradiction – I’ve made an unjustifiable statement. A contradiction is a statement in the form of “p and not p�. Anything else is not a contradiction in the proper sense.
My second (and more important point) is that my being an actor does not support the proposition that “men act� – hence the proposition “men do not act� is not impugned by the fact that I’m an actor. This is so because “men act� is a generalization, whereas “I act� is particular. You should agree that the following argument, contra Kant, is invalid:
Bin Laden is a terrorist. Bin Laden is a man. Therefore, men are terrorists.
Clearly, the fact that Bin Laden is a terrorist does not imply that “men are terrorists� – but that “some men are terrorists� – and we know that some (and most) aren’t. Similarly:
Unisonus is an actor. Unisonus is a man. Therefore, men are actors.
…is invalid. Rather, “some men are actors� (at least one is: Unisonus), and possibly some men aren't (which is the case). So to answer your question, Mr. Edwards – this is how I can deny that “men act�.
CMB,
---"To which I would say "Who the hell cares"."---
You don’t care if the contributors made false statements?
---"Looks like you've been taken in by a bunch of dumb-leftist philosphers."---
I’m just glad you don’t represent the Austrian school. They would be worse-off for it.
Published: January 27, 2006 1:40 PM
Unisonus,
I do not act. (-P)
My claim that I do not act constitutes an act (p)
P ^ -P
Happy?
So your remaining claim is that you may generally assert that not all men act; i.e. you may validly claim to represent the hordes of non-acting men all around us. However none of these non-acting men you speak of may assert that they do not act. Your proposition is tenuously held at best, but is most likely vacuous.
Published: January 27, 2006 2:14 PM
Hi Allen,
The problem with your qualification is that if it is true, it demolishes praxeology.
You said
“My sole qualification is that in any particular instance, such indisputable truths might not correspond to the reality addressed (e.g., a mother might not seek some presumed economic advantage, when dealing with her son, because she seeks some other subjective gain, or a country might forego economic gain, due to a pursuit of altruism.) Nonetheless, the a priori categories are undeniable and unavoidable.�
The thing about something being indisputably true is that it means to correspond to reality in all instances. Truth and reality are the same.
So let’s take the example of the mother. Praxeology considers net psychic gain of which financial gain is a subset. Therefore, all praxeology says is that whatever course the mother takes in respect to her son or indeed any other issue, to the extent that she follows her course freely, she is maximizing her psychic gain (ex ante). She is acting according to her perceived maximum advantage. This is also the case with general altruism. Benefactors act, and they always attempt to maximize their psychic gain, whatever it may cost them financially.
Published: January 27, 2006 2:21 PM
Dan,
I don't see your point. It is obvious that men who cannot act cannot state that they cannot act. Does it follow from this that they can act? Of course not.
The point is simple. The arguement that "men act" because "I act" or "you act" is invalid. I'm sorry to insult your God, but Kant is wrong.
Published: January 27, 2006 2:34 PM
I want to clarify. "Men act" is ambiguous. We have three propositions:
1."All men act"
2."Some men act" (At least one does)
3."Most men act" (More than half do)
The argument that "men act" because "I act" might be valid if and only if "men act" means (2). If you intend to prove (1) or (3) in this way, then the argument is invalid.
Published: January 27, 2006 2:50 PM
Non-acting men form an empty set.
A non-acting man that reacts solely by reflex is unconceivable. To choose not to think is an action. To choose not to move is an action. To attempt to resemble in some way plantlife is an action.
There is nothing wrong with your argument, I'm pointing out that it is vacuous. It is a noninteresting statement on the empty set.
Published: January 27, 2006 3:02 PM
Dan,
No one disputes that men act. I am concerned with the nature of the proposition. Austrians contend that the proposition "men act" is (1) necessary and (2) synthetic a priori. I disagree.
Necessary propositions are true in all possible worlds. But there are possible worlds in which men do not act. So the proposition is not necessary.
What reason do we have for thinking that the proposition is synthetic a priori? I did not know that “hands move� before I moved my hand, or before I saw others move their hands. But I’ve been given innate knowledge that “men act�? I don’t think so. I judge it to be true a posteriori.
Published: January 27, 2006 4:31 PM
What on earth are you people rabbitting on about.? You would never get the plumbing done if the plumber went about things in this way. Arbitraily bringing out the microscope for every little proposition until it comes time to put your own ideas forward. Tch Tch. And total suckers for the endless silliness of the bulk of the philosophers?!!!!!!!!!!! You know for some of us this sort of stuff is really really old hat.
Public policy is actually an incredibly prosaic subject as I think Mises pointed out somewhere. In other words its just like plumbing or brick-layiing. At least in terms of the initial methodology. And you build up your various assumptions in a commonsense sort of way.
Leftism can be seen as a secular/religious cult. Now what happens when these cultists invade philosophy. They have to develop certain schools of thought which undermine sensible thinking or how can they hope to get their idiotic ideas off the ground?
Look at the posts of CMB and Unisous. The poor buggers can't even lay down the simplist and soundest building block imagineable!!!!!
OK. So if a Man is dead, asleep, Joed out in front of the tube, and so forth perhaps there is some quibbling as to whether he is acting or not. But if the proposition that 'Man Acts" is not a solid one from which one can first explore barter and then trace the development of money and then on to more complex economic thinking..........
If these philosophy boffins cannot even get THAT right then what good are they for?
And if you followed these people round you would find that their excessive pickiness (stripped of the jargon that's all it is) is something they just pull out of the bag for the purposes of obstruction. Because not only could they not get the plumbing done using this methodology. They couldn't so much as comb their hair, put their pants on, and make it to work on time.
Published: January 27, 2006 4:53 PM
" there are possible worlds in which men do not act"
No, if men did not act they would not exist. In order to exist man must: breathe, eat, reproduce, etc... And for a sentient being, all are actions because they are (or in the case of breathing can be) under conscious control.
To imagine a world where men do not act is to imagine a world without men.
CC
Published: January 27, 2006 4:57 PM
Most of this advanced high-powered quibbling will likely fall away if we fully work through the insights of Venn Diagrams and Fuzzy Logic.
Whereas the proposition that "Man Acts" is about as close to an Axiom as one can get, in general looking at these things from a Venn Diagram/Fuzzy Logic perspective would have us downgrading most axioms to near-axioms. And most allegedly empty sets into sets with not a whole lot in them relatively speaking.
If we take this perspective we find that we can deep-six a great deal of this under-graduate philosophy-boffin mucking about.
Traditional logic tends to lend itself to a sort of "digital brain disorder". Because it emphasises True/False Yes/No On/off. A is A type of thinking. And because the world isn't quite like that you get all this dogmatism and quibbling on the margins.
Published: January 27, 2006 5:09 PM
Unisonus,
I think i understand the root of our issue: it is this:
You are saying the dead, the brain dead and the comatose do not act. Just because they are unable to deny they cannot act, doesn't change the fact that they cannot act. This would be similar to plants and animals: they too cannot deny that they do not act, and in fact they do not act.
I will concede this. Humans in the above three categories do not act. All others do. For the same reasons as given before.
Does this resolve the dispute?
Published: January 27, 2006 5:11 PM
Unisonus,
It is synthetic a priori because through reflection for any man to deny that he acts is a performative contradiction.
No observation is necessary. The idea that observation could have occured does not change the nature of a priori truths. To observe that 2 apples and 2 apples makes 4 apples does not change the a priori nature of mathematics.
Given the nature of man as a thinking, rational being it is necessary that man implies action.
Thought implies action, and choosing between options implies action.
GMB
You dont know how close to the truth you are. I recognize Unisonus' name from philosophyforums.com. I used to peruse there from time to time. I'll never forget an argument in the math section of that site. Someone claimed it is apodictically true that 2+2=4. Some other forum member denied this truth, since he could conceivably create a different number system in which its '2' would not be the same as our system's '2'. Thus, it isnt true that 2+2 always equals 4. The poster would not budge from this bozo assertion and many defended him. Unisonus was not part of that but that sort of argument is typical of that philosophy site (at least it was when I stopped visiting about 1-2 years ago).
Published: January 27, 2006 5:16 PM
Let your mind not be troubled Dan. As Hannity would say. I'm probably somewhat older then most of you here. And so I think I do have some understanding of how close to the truth I am.
When I was very young an older brother came back from University with a brilliant book. It was called 'An Introduction To Philosophical Analysis' by John Hospers.
Now it was such a good text and I read it and grasped it all at such a young age that the novelty of all this sort of talk has kind of worn off. It was many years later that I found he was actually a bit of a fan of Ayn Rand. But that's neither here nor there.
Rand tends to be a bit digital in her thinking. But so brilliant that she's worthwhile anyway, although pretty easy to make fun of I guess, if you have a prediliction for that sort of thing.
But since those two the best stuff I've seen is applied Venn Diagrams and Fuzzy Logic. And it takes away all the need for this quibbling since the exceptions will be accounted for and show up later in terms of exceptions to the generalisations of the model in its entirety.
Published: January 27, 2006 5:29 PM
Edwards,
No one said that the proposition "men act" is false. So why in the world are you trying to convince me that it isn't? We were talking about how the proposition is known, not if it is known.
Dan,
---It is synthetic a priori because through reflection for any man to deny that he acts is a performative contradiction.---
I can know that I act via reflection; but I cannot know that "men act" via reflection. First I must come to realize that I am a man, and then I must come to realize men (in general) act. This requires experience.
About logic: The use of logic is essential to any kind of intellectual pursuit. And it's pretty obvious that Rand's work is to analytic philosophy as pro-wrestling is to wrestling (I took that from someone, but I can't recall who).
Published: January 27, 2006 6:34 PM
Hilarious.....
And what was it that conjured up all you incredibly naieve philosophy bully-boys.
"DID SOMEBODY SAY AXIOM?" Somebody says axiom perhaps. And there you all are. Rushing in and getting in the way.
And so far with your marvelous thinking you haven't managed to get past page one of Man, Economy and State. But its worse then that. You haven't managed to get past THE FIRST SENTENCE.
Did it never occur to you young naifs, you Babes on the philosophy tsunami, that getting in the way might even be part of the PURPOSE of this eternal silliness.
Published: January 27, 2006 6:42 PM
"No one said that the proposition "men act" is false."
Actually that is a lie and also a confession of sorts. Since people are in fact disputing this. And also if you agreed with it we can see that your entire purpose on this particular thread is to get in the way.
Published: January 27, 2006 6:44 PM
Unisonus,
“No one said that the proposition "men act" is false. So why in the world are you trying to convince me that it isn't? We were talking about how the proposition is known, not if it is known.�
You just want to know how the proposition “man acts� is a known a priori truth.
Answer: You can know it is an indisputably true, and undeniably true fact always because once you have intellectually apprehended the meaning of the proposition, you can understand also that it cannot be disputed: literally. You cannot, I cannot and no one else can dispute the proposition without you, I or anyone else falling into a performative contradiction. This is how you know the proposition is known, true and undisputable.
You have earlier answered essentially, but there may be men out there who cannot act and so will not be in a position to either act or even perform a contradiction. To which I answer, yes: a dead man, a brain dead man, or a man in a coma would fit with your scenario. No one else would. And for purposes of the study of praxeology, these men would not be part of the study because they do not act and do not influence the environment for their own purposes as all other men do. So outside of men in such states, we again know that men act is an undisputable truth.
Published: January 27, 2006 8:03 PM
Unisonus,
To pile on you even further, you stated:
"I can know that I act via reflection; but I cannot know that "men act" via reflection. First I must come to realize that I am a man, and then I must come to realize men (in general) act. This requires experience."
If you, qua man, can know that you act via reflection, then surely all other men can know this via reflection. Thus the generized statement "men act" is known a priori, and it is irrefutable. Unless of course polylogism is going to come into this? >
Published: January 27, 2006 8:26 PM
CMB,
---And what was it that conjured up all you incredibly naieve philosophy bully-boys.---
Above the text box, it it says, "Post an intelligent and civil comment." Your posts are neither.
Paul Edwards,
---You can know it is an indisputably true, and undeniably true fact always because once you have intellectually apprehended the meaning of the proposition, you can understand also that it cannot be disputed: literally.---
First you say that it cannot be disputed. Then you dispute it by claiming that some men do not act. Then you again claim that it is undisputable. Well, if you think so - stop disputing it!
Dan,
---If you, qua man, can know that you act via reflection, then surely all other men can know this via reflection. Thus the generized statement "men act" is known a priori, and it is irrefutable.---
If I know that "I act" and you know that "you act", it doesn't follow that we both know that "both of us act".
Published: January 27, 2006 8:59 PM
"---And what was it that conjured up all you incredibly naieve philosophy bully-boys.---
Above the text box, it it says, "Post an intelligent and civil comment." Your posts are neither."
Why CMB? I think my comments are very intelligent. Very worldly. Its important that someone points out to the kids when they have been taken in by this sophistry. You might review your own comments....... (jerk).
Paul Edwards.
"To which I answer, yes: a dead man, a brain dead man, or a man in a coma would fit with your scenario. No one else would. And for purposes of the study of praxeology, these men would not be part of the study because they do not act and do not influence the environment for their own purposes as all other men do."
Yeah that's the point isn't it. Even if people can muck about with categories and definitional destinctions for days on end exceptions to the idea that 'Man Acts' are not relevant to economics to the extent that such exceptions exist at all.
Published: January 27, 2006 9:08 PM
Sorry Unisonus, but you have no wiggle room. I know qua man that I act. I can deduce from that that all other beings like me also act...call them men or sentient beings or whatever, because they too must come to the conclusion that they contradict themselves if they think otherwise.
As I indicated, the only way it could not be so was if there somehow, someway was such a thing as polylogism. But then, anyone that goes for that sort of thing is frankly a dumbass.
Published: January 27, 2006 11:30 PM
GMB,
For a while i thought maybe you were being a little hard on poor old unisonus. My mistake. You had his number alright.
Published: January 28, 2006 12:59 AM
I am surprised that Paul Edwards thinks that he answered my qualm that a mother does not seek economic advantage, by pointing out what I had already stated, namely that she sought “some other subjective gain�. I had argued that the model must correspond to reality, while Paul said in effect that when someone mistakenly predicted how a mother would act economically, it did not correspond to the model.
Allow me to clarify. When we say that 1 and one make 2, it is not refuted by taking 1 rabbit and another to result in 6 rabbits. Nor is it a refutation to take 1 drop of one thing and 1 drop of another thing, to end up with 1 drop of something else, or with no drops at all. Similarly, when we say that when 1 person and 1 other person trade for mutual gain, we do not mean that 1 cat scratching 1 tree, is an expression of it. Similarly we do not mean that when a man is dead or in a coma, he is acting, or that when someone sees a rabbit, it is an optical illusion. *When a proposition expresses a truth about reality, it can only mean when it corresponds to that reality.* Can Paul possibly mean that there can be a truth about reality independent of whether or not it corresponds to that reality? If so, then nothing is true, for any statement about reality might not hold. Thus the statement that a tree is bigger than a worm would be refuted, by showing that a telephone is smaller than an airplane.
Published: January 28, 2006 12:51 PM
Dan,
Sorry . All you can deduce from "I act" is that any being exactly like you acts. But to assume that all men are exactly like you is a flagrant case of petito principi; a fallacy - an invalid argument - and, as Paul Edwards has admitted- false
Published: January 28, 2006 3:30 PM
Allen,
I think perhaps it was just a misunderstanding. You are saying that 1 plus 1 is indisputably true regardless of how many rabbits come out of a box after you put only two in to start with. And we agree. And it appears also that we agree that the laws of praxeology are not refuted when a mother disregards financial gain for other considerations. On that we agree as well. I think we simply agree and so the confusion is my fault.
Published: January 28, 2006 7:03 PM
"Therefore to say that theory starts with hypothetical principles is wrong. Theory starts with deductive axioms (again, independent of reality) which then produce testable hypotheses (notice, that’s the second step) which we can then TRY to test against empirical facts in the real world, bearing in mind Goethe’s warning that “every fact is already a theory�."
This is all wrong. And historically inaccurate. Aves tell me one theory which started in this way. I can only think of the invention of symbolic logic by Betrand Russel and some other guy. But its not really even a theory so much as an invention.
Theories start pretty much how the person you responded to said they did.
Published: January 28, 2006 9:11 PM
Unisonus,
With every post you make you lean further and further towards polylogism. Why don't you just admit you are an adherent of such?
I do not assume that all men are exactly like me. Only that logical truths are universally true. I assume, to paraphrase Mises, the logical structure of the human mind is characteristic of all men. That no matter whose mind is the subject, to state 'A' and at the same time "not A" is a contradiction.
I deduce, by logic that I act.
The logical structure of my mind, is the same as the logical structure of all men's minds, i.e. there is no such thing as a certain "Dan Logic" and a certain "Unisonus Logic," etc.
Thus all men must come to the same conclusion I came to.
Therefore all men act.
Published: January 28, 2006 11:49 PM
Paul Edwards writes "...the laws of praxeology are not refuted when a mother disregards financial gain...I think we simply agree and so the confusion is my fault."
First let me commend Paul for suggesting that he may have been mistaken. I find it rare and valuable for someone to admit an intellectual error, and further believe that what we need is less a matter of people being right, than of allowing that they may have been wrong. That being said, it may well be that I hadn't clarified my main point. It is that *there is a difference between viewing the a priori as necessary categories of thought, and how well they model given events*. Thus praxeology is known to be true a priori, while its detractors think they are refuting it by examples of how it can incorrectly model certain events.
Published: January 29, 2006 8:07 AM
Dude, if you can't accept the rules of simple syllogistic logic, then there's nothing I can say that'll change your mind. It's simply not possible to deductively move from specific to general propositions. The only things you can deduce from knowing yourself are things about yourself. You don't know what "other men" are like because "men act" is not analytic. You, Mises et al can take your beef up with the logic department.
Published: January 29, 2006 11:30 AM
I think you are being extremely nit-picky. By your critique, not even the tools of reason for men are logically prior to experience. All you must do is take the phrase 'men use reason' and then state it is not known a priori because you dont know anything about other men, even that they exist.
But I think that it is ridiculous to imply...no not imply, you are saying, so it is ridiculous to say that the tools of reason are not logically prior to man's experience. Like reason, action is unanalyzable. It must be presupposed to be proven. The only 'proof' of reason and action is that to attempt to disprove their existence results in contradiction. Man may not question reason and action without presupposing them and thus without contradiction. Thus, we cannot disprove them, they simply exist. And they are logically prior to experience. You think that is fallacious, I think you are applying something to analytics that cannot be applied.
Published: January 30, 2006 1:01 PM
Allen,
While i appreciate the approval, to be honest, you are giving me more credit than is due. I was only admitting i had misunderstood what you were saying. If you really had been saying what i thought you were saying, i would still be disagreeing with you now. If someone else said what i thought you were saying, you would also dispute it.
On the other hand, it is true that people here have persuaded me to change my mind on a thing or two, and i get a real kick out of it.
Published: January 30, 2006 1:52 PM
Unisonus,
What is the nature of this statement?
“It's simply not possible to deductively move from specific to general propositions.�
Is this a general proposition? Is it necessarily true? Did you arrive at it deductively from your intellectual apprehension of the nature of general propositions and didn’t you grasp this via thinking about a few instances where it might apply and see its general truth? It is necessary you thought you did because you know you couldn’t have experienced infinite empirical validations of it. And yet, your proposition, if true, is a counter-example to its own thesis. Again, we have a performative contradiction. Your statement cannot be true.
Published: January 30, 2006 4:58 PM
"Dude, if you can't accept the rules of simple syllogistic logic, then there's nothing I can say that'll change your mind. It's simply not possible to deductively move from specific to general propositions. The only things you can deduce from knowing yourself are things about yourself. You don't know what "other men" are like because "men act" is not analytic. You, Mises et al can take your beef up with the logic department."
Ho ho. Think how much time we could spend using your method just to pick apart your first sentence. We could spend literally days and days buggerising around with it. And acheive no more then you have on this thread.
Published: January 30, 2006 6:17 PM
What all of this comes to show is that, 1) yes, (paraphrasing) "people do stuff". So what? and 2) "Austrians" (the members of that scool of economics, not the folks from Austria) are a tragic example of how you can have an unassailable technology of reasoning and still be wrong about quite a lot of things.
Empiricism (i.e, actually looking at the world) and honesty (i.e, not redefining common terms like logic, purpose and benefit until they mean whatever you find convenient) are still better at getting to some usefull form of truth (well, for writing a PhD thesis in economics any crap will do - that's for sure) than some pseudo-logic "derivation" of propositions from trivial platitudes.
Published: January 31, 2006 5:58 PM
"people do stuff". So what?
Yes. Stuff happens. Surely there must be better ways to spend time than proving the obvious.
Published: January 31, 2006 6:44 PM
Unisonus,
To say that "man acts" is not necessarily to say that every man is acting all the time, or that every man is even capable of action (see the aforementioned examples).
To deny that "man acts" is a performative contradiction. Despite your talk about this not being a "proper contradiction", it is in fact a contradiction of sorts, as the action of saying such contradicts the alleged truth of what is being said.
If I say, "men do not act", I am contradiction myself, because I, a man, am engaging in the action of saying such. Your point out that it does not follow from this that all men act; that may be true, but so what? Non-actors (e.g., the dead, the comatose, the brain-dead) are not a legitimate subject of praxeology. We could generalize the statement "man acts" to be "actors act", in which case it would cover any conceivable "extra-terrestrials" of intelligence.
As regards praxeology, the only thing that we need empricism for is to find out to whom (or to what) the discipline applies.
foobar,
From the simple proposition that "man acts" (or as you put it, "people do stuff"), we can derive a number of important insights into praxeology, such as means-ends, time-preference, marginal utility, etc; see MES.
Also, all so-called empricism rests on -- in spite of itself -- statements that empricists assume to be axiomatic (although most of these implicitly assumed axioms are false, as they are self-contradictory).
Published: January 31, 2006 7:27 PM
This sentence is not provable in Praxeology.
Better Austrians start using a well defined logic language.
Read Copi about using natural language for logic reasoning.
Published: February 1, 2006 1:36 PM
This is so nonsensical. Undergraduates learn all the various ways things can be categorised in terms of modern philosophical jargon. And then they just get in the way.
The great success of fuzzy logic tells us that we can come to meaningful solutions without this hard-edged block-building from axioms up. People take this pseudo-reasoning seriously in error. Its really just a meaningless pastime.
The thought that all your assumptions need to be axiomatic leads to endless redefining of terms in order to avoid being caught out with the odd exception. So in the end the wording gets emphasised over the meaning behind the words. No stable theory in human history has been developed in this digitised: True/false on/off yes/no way.
We can see this by analogy from the failure of programming giant elegant software programs for (lets say) a factory process. Always you end up having to break the process up into blocks lest errors multiply.
The sort of reasoning that parallels fuzzy logic by contrast is forgiving of changing circumstances and economical in its usage.
(Whereas some particularly gullible phiosophy boffins are yet to get past the first sentence of the first line in Man Economy And State. Far from economical. Yet they are necessarily hypocritical and arbitrary at what they choose to devote this digitised nit-picking too.)
Much of this endless philosopy talk ought to be obsolete by now as a consequence of the insights that fuzzy logic brings. That is for those who weren't already hep to the silliness of all this verbiage. Human reason was never the same as plodding logic using discrete meanings or quanta.
Fuzzy logic and for that matter Venn diagrams model far better the natural world and the circumstances that we face.
Published: February 1, 2006 8:25 PM