Doubt the Action Axiom? Try to Disprove It
At the core of praxeology lies the incontrovertible proposition that humans act. Action is the purposeful employment of means to achieve ends in accord with the actor's values. The existence of action is axiomatic; the very attempt to deny it will result in its affirmation. Here, G. Stolyarov defends this validation of the action axiom — a validation that has been criticized as a self-referential statement. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (104)
Ah ha! I choose not to disprove it!
Published: April 5, 2006 9:13 AM
Another axiom is scientific method. If you deny the premise that existence is rational, and don't just assume it, then your argument is irrational by definition and shouldn't be listened to.
The only other one I know if is inherent goodness. If you deny that individuals are inherently good (eg their liberities and free will need to be minimized by the state) then you are yourself being inherently bad, and thus are not worth trusting.
All three of these concepts are very important, because they revolve arround premises. I've seen a lot of people make sophisticated arguments arround false premises, and then seen a lot of others jump in and waste their effort refuting the details of their arguments rather than attack the false premise. For example, how many times have we herd ... "the problem isn't the nature of the social security program/education program/communisim ... it is the implementation".
By doing that people immediately write off the importance of respecting free will and inherent goodness as irrelavent and try to argue implementation details. The appropiate response is to go back to arguing the premise again. A typical warning sign is when people try to play one premise against another. Eg. "It's irrational for people to exercise free will in a desperate situation."
Published: April 5, 2006 10:34 AM
OK, now THIS, was a great article. I was hoping to see an article on this topic from Stolyarov and he definitely did not disappoint.
I wonder if he would be inclined and feel up to the task of arguing in favor of (or against?) Hoppe’s controversial Argumentation Ethics thesis. With his writing skills and sound grip on logic it should be equally exciting or even more so, to read and discuss.
Thanks!
Published: April 5, 2006 10:43 AM
Wouldn't it be theoretically possible to at least prove that man does not always purposefuly act? Arguing this would not be a contradiction in itself.
Published: April 5, 2006 10:47 AM
Suppose from the mouth of someone came, "I do not act, but am forced to do as I do due to environmental factors." Try to disprove this!
Suppose I were to call myself the messiah and to take your denial of it as further proof.
Since the above two cannot be disproved, why is the action axiom worth any more respect?
What is wrong with instead of calling the axiom action a synthetic a priori truth, calling it an innate idea? And innate ideas may be false, because we don't know their origins. The assertion of a synthetic a priori truth is a flat out violation of the Cartesian dualism. It is to claim that the mind-body problem is solved.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:01 AM
I agree. I think we could argue that dead, comatose and unconscious men don't act. Also, i think we might be able to slip in that men don't act while sleeping, although that's maybe debatable because we are known to say “be quite I’m trying to get some sleep�, but then again, that’s only while we are awake.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:04 AM
Benjamin,
The proposition,
"I do not act, but am forced to do as I do due to environmental factors."
fails because environmental factors obviously did not force you to put forth that argument. You in fact chose to put forth that argument for the purpose of convincing your audience that the action axiom is not necessarily true.
On the other hand, environmental factors could _prevent_ a person from acting, such as his demise or an accident rendering him unconscious.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:11 AM
...or the proposition was put forth for other purposes. In either case, it fails because it is purposeful and clearly un-coerced by environment.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:20 AM
Paul : so in this case, detractors of the human action axiom have precious munitions on hand. The action axiom is not absolute.
Austrian economics is, I believe, sound, as is the action axiom, because we know by introspection that humans act. There is a step though to claim that this axiom is undisprovable. It is at least logically possible to disprove it, no matter whether it is true or not.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:20 AM
Paul,
As we argued in a previous blog discussion:
Since we cannot know whether our innate ideas are manipulated by other beings or things, any claim one way or the other cannot just be refuted by the opposite claim.
I said, "Suppose someone did not choose to say what was said". You, in response said, "That is not possible."
My question to you, then, is: How do you know? On what basis do you say that it is impossible that there are not beingS or things messing with our innate ideas?
If you do know, then you have done no less than solve the mind-body problem.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:35 AM
You claim that all "humans act".
I claim that not all humans act (i.e. at least some humans do not act).
You claim that my act of claiming that not all humans act, is proof that all humans act, because it is proof that I act. But my action is only proof that I act, and therefore proof of the weaker statement that "some humans act" (since I may or may not be sufficiently representative of the group "humans"), the stronger statement "all humans act" remains neither proved nor disproved.
The 'proof' from attempting to disprove "humans act", is invalid. Also, proof by failure to disprove is also invalid. And the weaker statement "some humans act" is useless.
And if you want to get into intricacies like "purposeful action", then there is no proof that my action is in fact purposeful, there may be evidence of it, but not "proof". The assumption of purpose here is itself also axiomatic.
here's a nice definition of axiom from encarta:
ax-i-om
2. [mathematics logic] basic proposition assumed to be true: a basic proposition of a system that, although unproven, is used to prove the other propositions in the system.
If the validity of the axiom "humans act" is based on something else (i.e. it is something more than just "assumed to be true"), then "humans act" is in fact not an axiom at all, and instead whatever basis we use is our axiom(s). And ironically that basis is looking very empirical.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:40 AM
francisstp,
"so in this case, detractors of the human action axiom have precious munitions on hand. The action axiom is not absolute."
It is still indisputable, just as the article lays out. And the contrary proposition that humans don't act is a performative contradiction and incoherent.
I will concede that detractors of the "humans act" axiom can correctly say that dead humans do not act. But the obvious Austrian counter is that economics concerns itself only with living humans who do.
Furthermore, it is only a living human who can argue the point, and it is to the living human that we can correctly say the proposition that "human's act" is indisputable. On this basis, i believe the "humans act" axiom remains on very solid ground. :)
Published: April 5, 2006 11:41 AM
Before one engages in a discussion about action, shouldn't you be clear on what he means. How limited is his definition of action?
Published: April 5, 2006 11:47 AM
"But my action is only proof that I act, and therefore proof of the weaker statement that "some humans act" (since I may or may not be sufficiently representative of the group "humans"), the stronger statement "all humans act" remains neither proved nor disproved."
Yes but ANYONE who is in the same situation as you and tries to deny the action axiom would commit that very same performative contradiction in doing so and we can know a priori.
That is that any and all possible specific instances of denial of the action axiom would be self-contradictory. So it goes beyond your concrete denial.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:05 PM
Chaos,
“You claim that all "humans act".�
The claim is “humans act�.
“I claim that not all humans act (i.e. at least some humans do not act).�
It doesn’t matter. The statement that “Humans act� is indisputable.
“You claim that my act of claiming that not all humans act, is proof that all humans act, because it is proof that I act.�
You are refuting a position that no one is arguing. Back up and start over. The proposition is “Humans act�.
“But my action is only proof that I act, and therefore proof of the weaker statement that "some humans act" (since I may or may not be sufficiently representative of the group "humans"), the stronger statement "all humans act" remains neither proved nor disproved.�
The proposition is “Humans act�. It is known a priori, it is synthetic, and it is indisputable. Contest the argument made in the article, not your own arguments.
“The 'proof' from attempting to disprove "humans act", is invalid.�
It is not a proof; it is a necessary presupposition of rational thought and argumentation and it is indisputable.
“Also, proof by failure to disprove is also invalid. And the weaker statement "some humans act" is useless.�
The realization that “Humans act� is far from useless, and at the end of this you will have failed to refute it. That’s all.
“And if you want to get into intricacies like "purposeful action", then there is no proof that my action is in fact purposeful, there may be evidence of it, but not "proof".�
No proof. But we know it is purposeful regardless. It is known a priori that humans act by all humans that can think. And simply no one can deny that humans act. The harder they argue against the proposition the more soundly they confirm it. Amazing.
“The assumption of purpose here is itself also axiomatic.
here's a nice definition of axiom from encarta:
ax-i-om
2. [mathematics logic] basic proposition assumed to be true: a basic proposition of a system that, although unproven, is used to prove the other propositions in the system.�
Yes, the term “axiom� does have a weaker connotation than what “humans act� warrants. The better reference to it is that it is an “indisputable truth�.
“If the validity of the axiom "humans act" is based on something else (i.e. it is something more than just "assumed to be true"), then "humans act" is in fact not an axiom at all, and instead whatever basis we use is our axiom(s). And ironically that basis is looking very empirical.�
We should more precisely refer to it as an indisputably true a priori synthetic proposition.
To summarize, from the article, we see that no proof that “humans act� is necessary. We know it is true by our nature as rational thinking beings, and it cannot be refuted:
“…there is no set of starting premises from which action can be strictly deduced. Rather, any logical analysis of action already presupposes its existence…
“…any thinking human knows that action exists and that he acts. How can this be? It is so because the fact that humans act is an a priori synthetic proposition. While it cannot be proved from more fundamental starting premises, it can be validated beyond possibility of refutation. Every attempt to refute a fundamental a priori synthetic proposition implicitly confirms its validity. This is so because every attempted refutation is itself a demonstration of the fact being denied.�
Published: April 5, 2006 12:24 PM
The whole debate about whether the statement is true has little bearing on its usefulness as an axiom. Are mathematical axioms true? Not really, no. Real numbers have no analog in physical reality, which is actually governed by integers and rational numbers. Also, there are no lines, planes, circles, etc. in reality; their very existence is impossible. But the axioms of the real numbers and Euclidean geometry are immensely useful in application to physical reality.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:34 PM
Hi Benjamin,
I’m always excited to discuss this with you.
I recall your clever point to the effect of “On what basis do you say that it is impossible that there are not beingS or things messing with our innate ideas?�
However, this fails merely because it simply pushes the fact of action back to another controlling sentient being. If your hypothetical were to be true, then the statement “humans act� merely means, “the persons controlling us humans act�.
In your scenario, nothing really changes but the “persons� to whom the actions should be attributed. I think perhaps the fact that you are debating with me suggests you presuppose that it is your own human and rational mind making this argument to me. But if in fact you don’t presuppose this, there is at the end of the labyrinth you imagine, a rational mind making this argument. And this rational mind is acting.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:37 PM
John,
Action is purposeful use of means to achieve ends.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:44 PM
Crawling Chaos seems to be confusing and blurring the lines between praxeology and thymology. The question of whether a particular human being acts or is acting is a thymological issue, not a praxeological one. The statement "human beings act" is not a positivist-empiricist generalization. It refers to the essence of the nature of normal human beings. It says nothing about whether they always act or whether there are human beings who are for some reason or other deficient (comatose, brain-dead, insane, etc.).
I just have one quibble with Stolyarov's essay and it is on an issue he shares with Hans Hoppe. He states that if "one were to merely observe the behavior of humans in the external world, one would not be able to induce the existence of purposive action form it; all one would observe would be certain outward movements of human bodies. Sensory observation of others alone does not allow one to conclude that action exists."
First, he uses the word "induce" in the modern positivist-empiricist sense of induction, but this is not real induction. Classical induction is the process of concept formation. Modern scientistic induction is really retroduction (or hypothetico-deduction) and presupposes an atomistic and mechanistic world-view.
Second, the claim that we don't observe action in the external world but only bodily movements is just wrong and flatly contradicted by the facts. Perception is theory-laden; there is a conceptual component in perception. Our individual senses do indeed only pick up bodily movements and such; they do not involve any conceptual thought or judgment. But perception at the cognitive level does. This, of course, does not alter or undermine the apodicticity of the action axiom.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:48 PM
Paul: I have not merely pushed back who the actor is, for it may be no actor at all. Why could it not be plants releasing certain things that we cannot alter? And we are not discussing whether just anything acts, but humans specifically. If you then go back to using only the term "sentient beings", then that may not necessarily include humans at all.
Published: April 5, 2006 12:50 PM
For someone relatively new to this web site and blog, can anyone point out in simple English what difference it makes in the real world whether all people act or some people do not.
Published: April 5, 2006 1:27 PM
Great argument. I have a similar and related case. Do we have rights? Let's stick to the fundamental right of self-determination. Just suppose there was only one person in the whole world or universe. For such a person the statement 'I have a right on self-determination' would be meaningless. He does not need it and it would make no difference if he hadn't. We only have rights because others 'grant' us that right, otherwise even the term would not exist. Symmetry comes in and the equivalence principle dictates that we all grant that right to each other. Hence, it makes sense to talk about having rights, even considering transivity and reflexivity.
From this right we deduct that we act. The reciprocity of the right on selfdetermination implies that we act accordingly. Hence, the term action vs. random movements.
I believe that the selfdetermination axiom is more fundamental than the action one acc. to above reasoning. Why is it needed? Because otherwise we risk as a species to cease to exist. If the actions violate the right on selfdetermination on such a scale that we exterminate each other than this right has no purpose.
We might even consider a cosmological scale. If we exterminate ourselves as a species, why should we have a right to win e.g. from a more agressive, smarter species?
So human action is ultimately geared towards that survival of the species. It works because in the group there is the fundamental right of selfdetermination as an axiom.
Published: April 5, 2006 1:37 PM
Benjamin,
"I have not merely pushed back who the actor is, for it may be no actor at all. Why could it not be plants releasing certain things that we cannot alter?"
OK, like someone smoking a joint in the room next door getting you high and altering your behavior? You're still going to act regardless, even if in a less inhibited way. Maybe i'm not following you on this one.
"And we are not discussing whether just anything acts, but humans specifically. If you then go back to using only the term "sentient beings", then that may not necessarily include humans at all."
Well, this is a very wild and intricate sort of "supposing" we're doing in the first place, so i guess we really do have to be precise. If we only think we act, but in fact we are puppets in a play (even this debate is really put on by these amazing beings), then our puppeteers act instead, but they act through us, i suppose is all i'm saying.
Essentially, it effectively works out to humans act, because they think, or they think they think, and by all accounts also appear to purposefully pursue ends through means in the physical world, or at least we all seem to think this is what we are doing.
But in the bizarre scenario of humans being puppets, all we can then say is "puppeteers act through humans", but perhaps i believe that still evaluates to "humans act".
Published: April 5, 2006 1:51 PM
Eric,
Excellent point. I recommend reading Hoppe's "On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property" at
http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf
and others of his that show that only the libertarian ethic can be justified and all other ethics are unjustified. I think you'll like it.
Published: April 5, 2006 1:56 PM
Perhaps it is a little simplistic, although understandably so, to say "humans act." After all, we're using the axiom to explain human behavior, as opposed to the behavior of bacteria or octopi. Now, if a spaceship lands and an individual walks out, we might not be able to tell right away if its activities are purposeful or not. (Perhaps it's a non-sentient pet being abandoned.) I don't think it would take long to figure out whether it was capable of action, in which case, we'd say, "Glpxians act," which would get us pretty far. Its subjective preferences, however, could only be divined from its actions. You can study a person for a lifetime and still not fully understand all of his subjective preferences. Imagine how difficult and fascinating it might be to study a sentient alien!
The backstory to the Matrix Trilogy was kind of along those lines. The robots themselves were sentient beings--originally created by humans, but just as capable of action as humans were. The problem came about when the humans turned on them, as they often do when fearful.
Published: April 5, 2006 2:01 PM
Ike,
"Perhaps it is a little simplistic, although understandably so, to say "humans act.""
It is only two words, so it can come across as pretty simple. But the entire science of praxeology is practically founded on them. So yes to simple, but if you are suggesting it is overly simplistic to the point of being flawed, i'd be interested to see in what way.
Published: April 5, 2006 2:09 PM
Paul: How can it still amount to "humans act" if it is in fact the puppeteers acting using humans as mere puppets? If you claim that it is because we do not know of the existence of puppeteers, that will not do, because we might come to know it (through a different or disappeared or additional innate idea) in the future.
To continue to defend your Misesian/Rothbardian/ Hoppean position you would have to say that the manipulation of innate ideas is impossible and explain why. Since this cannot be done, we should stop talking of synthetic a priori truths and instead talk of innate ideas (which may be false).
Published: April 5, 2006 2:16 PM
I’m afraid that the author is still pre-supposing that “humans act� in order to get to the non-contradiction criterion. Otherwise, we can prove all kinds of things to be true, as long as we make sure that it's coherent (non-contradictory). I hope the author doesn't mind if I imitate his form of argumentation:
Consider the statement, “Truth is from God,� in a more detailed reformulation: “This statement, which asserts that all truth comes from God, is itself true.� There is no contradiction here. If indeed all truth comes from God, then the statement itself—having a source from God—might well be true. If it fits the definition of truth—which it does—then the statement can make true assertions about its status as such. The statement is both self-referential and true. The God axiom is self-referential, but its referents extend far beyond the statement itself. The God axiom refers to both itself and every other truth.
However, any denial of the God axiom is both self-referential and contradictory. The statement, “Truth does not come from God,� is a contradiction because truth-claims qua truth-claims fit the definition of truth; they come from God. “This statement, which is itself truth, asserts that truth does not come from God.�
“The genuine criterion for truth is non-contradiction; the God axiom meets this criterion, whereas its denial does not. Because the God axiom cannot be contradicted, it is irrefutably true. Furthermore, its formulation encompasses facts beyond the statement itself; thus, it is true about truth-claims other than its own assertions.
Published: April 5, 2006 2:32 PM
Paul Edwards,
I concede your point.
Published: April 5, 2006 2:43 PM
Benjamin,
Ok, my argument against yours was all sideways.
The whole question comes back simply to this: can we dispute that "humans act"? Well, humans cannot, even if there is a possibility that they don't in fact act, according to your hypothesis, for instance. The ultimate fact is though, that in the end, "humans act" remains indisputable.
That is until... someone's alien puppeteer arrives on the scene and says: "humans don't act". At that point there is someone, not a human, who can actually dispute the proposition that “humans act�. Then it is disputable. Until then, it remains indisputable. That's all.
All that humans think and do is in accordance with the presupposition that they themselves are actors i.e. that humans act. This is indisputable. We don't prove it, we know it (or think and act as if we do); we can hypothesize that it might not be true, but we cannot dispute it.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:06 PM
We certainly can dispute that humans act. Isn't that what we have been doing? Can we refute it? No, but so what!? Can you refute the Koran, the Old Testament or its sequel, etc? Consider this (Romans 9:19-20): "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" (See also Nigel's comment above)
The point is: Although I am not able to refute the proposition that humans act, I am able to show why it is not inconceivable that it is false. And if its falsity can be conceived, then it is not necessarily a synthetic a priori truth. And this is what I set out to do. I did not ever try to refute the proposition that humans act - I believe they do, but that it is an innate idea (which therefore may be false), not a synthetic a priori truth.
If you are to continue to maintain that it is a synthetic a priori truth and not an innate idea then it is not me who must refute the proposition that humans act, but you who must prove it, taking into account all my (however ridiculous) situations.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:27 PM
The statement "The genuine criterion for truth is non-contradiction" is empirically false.
While the statement is true on a micro scale, that is, for one relatively simple statement at a time, it is not true on a larger scale.
The Artificial Intelligence community discovered this when they built large expert systems 15 or so years ago. Depending on the context, above a few hundred or so rules, the systems didn't work, because contradictions occurred between some of the rules. To wax philosophical, any reasonably complex human endeavor requires the ability to resolve (or tolerate) contradiction and paradox. This may be done with reason, empathy, or wisdom, but not with logic.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:35 PM
Bill: Nothing is empirically false, you are talking about two different things. What is true in theory is correct in practice. History (empirical observation) does not set a theory, it merely illustrates it.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:41 PM
Ike Hall & Bill Wiltschko,
On those same lines I was thinking that that we should abandon Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and replace it with one law: Robots Act.
After scores of these robots are constructed, the robots are unleashed to conduct a social experiment to see whether the robots logically & rationally choose to peacefully coexist in anarchocapitalist societies, or if they will tend to deny their rationality and form political and destructive economic alliances ala the state that we humans irrationally prop.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:43 PM
Non-contradiction is not the only criterion for truth, for two wrongs don't make a right. Two propositions - eg., "I am Michael Jordan" and "I am God" - do not contradict, but they are not the truth.
Published: April 5, 2006 3:49 PM
Benjamin,
“We certainly can dispute that humans act.�
Not without falling into a performative contradiction resulting in putting forward an incoherent argument.
“The point is: Although I am not able to refute the proposition that humans act, I am able to show why it is not inconceivable that it is false.�
You are able to imagine a contrived universe that most thinking people would consider to be highly unlikely if not ridiculous. You can similarly claim to show that it is not inconceivable that 1 PLUS 1 is not 2. It’s just that firstly, it is unlikely, secondly, people recognize it is unlikely or impossible; thirdly, it is useless to hypothesize about such a universe since it seems either unlikely or impossible that we live in it. Fourthly, even with your contrived universe, UNTIL the alien appears to dispute that humans act, the proposition will remain indisputable.
“If you are to continue to maintain that it is a synthetic a priori truth and not an innate idea then it is not me who must refute the proposition that humans act, but you who must prove it, taking into account all my (however ridiculous) situations.�
It is
-Synthetic because it has practical implications.
-A priori because once we understand its truth we recognize it as true without need for experiments.
-True because it is indisputable.
I enjoy arguing this with you! (It is you, right? Just kidding!)
Published: April 5, 2006 3:59 PM
The statement "humans act" is not complete without quantification and "humans don't act" is not the contradiction of "humans act". Saying "humans act" implies that all members of the class "humans" act, i.e. "all humans act". For the statement "humans don't act" to be refuted by a single human (acting to refute "humans act"), then it necessarily implies that "humans don't act" implicitly meant "all humans don't act", i.e. "no human acts", which is the inverse of "some humans act". Do we take "humans act" to mean "some humans act"? In which case the arguement is sound. However the economics breaks down.
I don't think it is a coincidence that a school of thought that started with the premise "humans act", derived a system of economic and political thought appropriate for humans who "act". However if in fact only "some humans act" (or even worse "some humans sometimes act"), then the various statist schools of thought start to make sense.
The problem with the debate is that "humans act" is a normative axiom (in the full sense).
Published: April 5, 2006 4:07 PM
Out of curiosity: do "animals act"?
Published: April 5, 2006 4:08 PM
Paul:
You say that my "ridiculous" situation is "highly unlikely". So what!? You say that "most thinking people" do not agree with me. Do they agree with you when you tell them that government is criminal and destructive? Since when does number of believers entail truth?
You say that the proposition that humans act is true becuase it is indisputable. Presuming you mean irrefutable, I have already mentioned that all the religious literature is irrefutable, yet much of it conflicts. Do you believe that all religious positions (even those that conflict) are true? You say that my argument is "incoherent", what part did you not understand?
It is inconceivable that 1 plus 1 does not equal 2. It is a different kind of proposition to the claim that humans act. Mathematics is analytic not synthetic.
The last sentence you quoted of mine, where I claimed that the burden of proof was on you, you seemed to dismiss without addressing.
Published: April 5, 2006 4:35 PM
- do "animals act"?
Actually, that compels me to share with you this funny little anecdote.
My dog seemed to want another dog's bone. So she walked up to this dog and dropped a ball in front of her. This didn't do it. So my dog picked up the ball, dropped it again, barked, and pretended (apparently) to really be playing with it. Soon after this, the dog with the bone was my dog, and the dog playing with the ball was the one originally chewing the bone.
Could this possibly by an instance of dog marketing and dog barter? They also seem to have a grasp of the homesteading principle and the institution of property rights; they’re austro-libertarians! Dogs are so advanced. Why can’t humans be more like dogs? LOL.
Published: April 5, 2006 4:41 PM
Regarding whether animals act. Wittgenstein, I think, said that if lions could talk, we would not understand them. Language and other actions seem to be species-specific. As Rothbard mentioned in a section of The Ethics of Liberty on animals rights, if animals think they have rights, they ought to speak up and say so.
Published: April 5, 2006 4:58 PM
I have an objection against the use of the word ‘axiom’ in this piece. The writer clearly does not have had a training in logic. In particular, he confuses meaning with truth. This is something I have noticed in Mises himself. He was clearly not a scholar of logic. So let me clarify a little bit.
A logical system consists of four parts.
1. A set of tokens, usually infinite.
2. A set of rules, that tell how these tokens can be put together so that formulas arise that have meaning. When the resulting formula is constructed in such a way that it corresponds to the rules, the formula is called well formed. It is a well formed formula. The rules themselves are also called a grammar.
So step 1 and 2 lead to meaningful statements. The rules of grammar must be formulated in such a way, that the resulting meanings of the formula describe a ‘world’, which you can also call a context. When every possible understanding of this world can be cast into such a formula, the rules of grammar are said to be completely clear. If the formulas can only be understood in one and only one way, the description of the world does not leave room for ambiguities, and therefore is called categorical. Whenever a system satisfies these two criteria, it cannot be denied. For the denial must be meaningful, and therefore must be itself a well-formed formula. Why? Because the logical denial of ‘meaning’ is ‘nonsense’.
And that is where the error lies, in Mises, and in everybody who follows him. His arguments are convincing, but not because they are irrefutable truths, but because praxeology is a categorical system of grammatical rules that make the understanding of action explicit, and completely clear. So von Mises defines a context. That is both his power and his weakness. Why a weakness? Because the elucidation of a context is not what science is about, but what a philosophy is about. Philosophy is about understanding questions, not answering them. Von Mises has discovered the context of action. This is what he calls praxeology.
Whenever a system satisfies these two parts, the formulas can be interpreted, and their interpretations are understandings, but not yet truths. These understandings can then be either true or false.
And that is where axioms come in. An axiom is a particular well-formed formula. It is a well-formed formula you take as a point of departure. But the truth of an axiom is not something you understand, but is something you assume. As such an axiom is the first step in a logical deduction.
Axioms are, within a context, by definition a first step within a context, so that you can make a distinction between true statements and false statements. Whenever a well-formed formula can be derived from an axiom, or a set of axioms, it is called true. And whenever a well-formed formula cannot be derived from an axiom or a set of axioms, it is false.
3. So axioms, in general, are the first step within a context, so that you can make a distinction between true and false statements within that context. Axioms are a collection of well-formed formulas you use to determine, within a ‘possible world’, a context, all other well-formed formulas that can be said to be true.
This distinction arises because either the statement is an axiom, and therefore true by assumption, or it follows from an axiom, or a number of axioms through a chain of logical derivations.
And that brings me to the fourth part.
4. In order to make logically valid deductions, you need a rule that tells what deductions are valid, and which are not. So this is the fourth part of any science: a rule of deduction.
Now, to complete the description, a set of axioms is said to be consistent if it is not possible to derive a well-formed formula from it meaning A, and another well-formed formula from it meaning not A.
A set of axioms is said to be complete if either any well-formed formula A can be derived from it, or its logical denial not A can be derived from it. Whenever a set of axioms satisfies this, it is capable of making a distinction in the complete set of meaningful statements, in the complete set of well-formed formulas, between those that are true and those that are false. In other words, if there exist a well-formed formula A that cannot be derived from the set of axioms, and its logical denial not A can also not be derived from the set of axioms, the set of axioms is not complete.
Moreover, if there exist a procedure, other than the logical derivation we can use to determine whether an arbitrary well-formed formula is either derivable from the axioms, or its logical denial is derivable from the axioms, the system is called decidable.
And, lastly, the set of axioms is contradiction free if there exist a single well-formed formula that is not derivable from the set of axioms. This is because of a theorem of logic, that says that whenever a system of axioms contains a contradiction, then every well-formed formula follows from it. But such a system fails to make a distinction between true and false statements. Such a system coincides with its context. This distinguishes religious systems from philosophical one’s. A religious system is a ‘set of axioms’ that contains at least one contradiction, and usually many such contradictions. You can then select a subset of ‘axioms’ that are free of contradictions. This leads to a possible interpretation of a religion. Usually such a subset is then put forward by some leader, who creates a following because of its logical consistency. This is why you can make a distinction between a religion and a sect. You can define a religion as a collection of mutually contradictory sects that all base themselves on one ‘Holy text’ that contains many contradictions. A philosophy, on the other hand, is a description of a context, a description of ‘an important field of questions’, within which we have not yet a criterion to make a distinction between true and false statements. Therefore a philosophy is something between a religion and a science. Religion is about ‘blindly accepting a contradictory field of enquiry’. Philosophy deals with understanding questions, and eliminating the ambiguities, resulting in completely unambiguous understanding. The questions are then completely clear. And science is the next step, the attempt to make a distinction between true and false answers to questions.
The point I want to make, is that there is a difference between the concept of ‘understanding’ and the concept of ‘truth’. An understanding is a well-formed formula, a statement belonging to a certain context. The complete set of all well-formed formulas defines what is meaningful. Whenever we succeed in creating a system consisting of tokens and a grammar from which we can construct every meaningful statement, then the system is completely clear. And when these meaningful statements are completely unambiguous, and can only be understood in one and only one way, the system is categorical.
The opposition in this stadium of development is not ‘true’ versus ‘false’, but ‘meaningful’ versus ‘nonsense’. These first two steps are about understanding the questions, and not about finding the answers to the questions. These first two steps constitute philosophy, not science. For philosophy is not about answering questions, but about understanding questions. That is why philosophy is pre science.
Philosophy passes over in science, when we find, within the context, some statements which we can use as starting points of logical derivations. We hope that these statements correspond to reality, and if they do, then we accept them as truths. We do that, because we hope that every logical derivation of these statements lead to results that can also be found to correspond to reality. The acceptance of truth is the same as declaring the statements to be axioms.
What this means is that there is one thing axioms have to satisfy if they are proper axioms. The logical denial of an axiom, or the logical denial of the result of a logical derivation of an axiom must be understandable, but false. This means, that a statement can only be an axiom, if it can be denied. If a statement cannot be denied, then it is not an axiom, but must be a rule of grammar. It is a description of an understanding, but not a description of a truth.
The concept of truth implies its logical denial, the concept of falseness. Any truth has to be able to make a distinction between an imagination that can be realized and an imagination that cannot be realized. So the denial of an axiom must be imaginable, otherwise it cannot make a distinction, within the context, between true and false statements.
Since the denial of action does not lead to something we can imagine, but is false, but it leads to something that is unintelligible, the concept of action is not an axiom, but a ‘rule of grammar’ that elucidates a certain context. In particular, it elucidates the context of economy.
That is why praxeology is not a science, but a philosophy.
Ludwig von Mises was an economic philosopher, but he was not an economic scientist.
Economy is not yet a science. A point, that I have made before.
Published: April 5, 2006 5:09 PM
Blah blah blah
All of this is irelevant. Said "axiom" (platitude) might be true (well, yes, it is!) but it lacks any meaning. You cannot derive anything of interest from it without introducing definitions and further axioms, and there is the problem.
The fact alone that it is so easy to assert the truth value of this axiom should make anyone suspicious. There is nothing of value in it.
Drop it. You look like utter fools clinging to that straw.
Published: April 5, 2006 5:37 PM
Konrad, I would argue that philosophy IS a science and just like any science people can do it badly if they are insufficiently knowledgeable and rigorous.
Published: April 5, 2006 5:43 PM
Benjamin,
“You say that my "ridiculous" situation is "highly unlikely". So what!?�
Nothing really. Even if it were possible or likely “humans act� is still indisputable, irrefutable or whatever, until your alien comes and disputes it.
“You say that "most thinking people" do not agree with me. Do they agree with you when you tell them that government is criminal and destructive? Since when does number of believers entail truth?�
Actually, when I really think about it, what I really mean is that all thinking people know your proposal is false. Even you know it is false. The only reason you advance it is for the purpose of casting doubt on the “humans act� proposition. Otherwise, you yourself would simply concede it is ridiculous.
“You say that the proposition that humans act is true becuase it is indisputable.�
Yup. Disputing it necessarily puts the one disputing it into a performative contradiction.
“Presuming you mean irrefutable, I have already mentioned that all the religious literature is irrefutable, yet much of it conflicts.�
You can dispute religious literature without falling into a performative contradiction.
“Do you believe that all religious positions (even those that conflict) are true?�
Nope. I don’t think they are indisputable either. On the other hand, I’m not saying at least some of them are not true, but that’s another issue.
“You say that my argument is "incoherent", what part did you not understand?�
I understand your argument. When I call it incoherent, I mean it is self-contradictory. It refutes itself. The proposition “I will act to argue that humans don’t act� is such a proposition.
“It is inconceivable that 1 plus 1 does not equal 2. It is a different kind of proposition to the claim that humans act. Mathematics is analytic not synthetic.�
You can’t conceive that 1 plus 1 is not equal 2? Neither can i. And that is also how I feel about your other scenario regarding human action. Also, is mathematics really purely analytic? Would this not mean then, that it is constituted merely of tautologies and has no practical use in the real world? Are you sure.
“The last sentence you quoted of mine, where I claimed that the burden of proof was on you, you seemed to dismiss without addressing.�
I guess I could have given a better answer. No proof that “humans act� is necessary, nor possible. I’ll just quote the article:
“…there is no set of starting premises from which action can be strictly deduced. Rather, any logical analysis of action already presupposes its existence…
“…any thinking human knows that action exists and that he acts. How can this be? It is so because the fact that humans act is an a priori synthetic proposition. While it cannot be proved from more fundamental starting premises, it can be validated beyond possibility of refutation. Every attempt to refute a fundamental a priori synthetic proposition implicitly confirms its validity. This is so because every attempted refutation is itself a demonstration of the fact being denied.�
Published: April 5, 2006 5:45 PM
Konrad,
The action axiom IS an axiom not just a rule of grammar, and it is not just something we ASSUME but something that is presupposed in and constitutive of our thinking, experience, and history. When you say assumed it sounds like you mean to imply that the assumption is an arbitrary one but this couldn't be farther from the truth. Moreover, the action axiom is not merely assumed but can actually be demonstrated, albeit not by positive demonstration but rather by negative demonstration in much the same way that Aristotle proves the Principle of Non-Contradiction in his Metaphysics - to whit, the very act of attempting to refute the action axiom presupposes its truth. The action axiom is also meaningful. It seems to me that you have been overly influenced by logical positivism and its descendents.
Published: April 5, 2006 5:51 PM
Dear Zombie,
Apart from a disrespectful way of expressing yourself, I am afraid, that you do not get the point. The concept of action does have meaning. But it cannot be said to be a truth. It is a concept, an understanding.
Von Mises himself said that much. He made a lot off fuss about the idea of ‘Verstehen’ = ‘understanding’. He considered ‘Verstehen’ to be enough as a basis for an epistemology of economics.
In one point you are right. A vision of economy that is developed far enough to be considered a true science should not be just about action, but it should give us a concept we can use to predict what particular consequences will follow from which conditions. A science of action should look like this. We imagine a society, any society. And then, from the science of action, we can see which particular actions will realize this society.
It is exactly at this point where economics continuously failed to deliver, and why it is not a science. Marx imagined a world without money, wherein the idea of division of labor and cooperation would lead to tremendous affluence. His theory was supposed to tell us which actions we should undertake to realize this. And when it was implemented, it led to exactly the opposite.
Or take Keynes. He asserted, that if you increase the ratio of consumer spending/investment, then a ‘multiplication effect of value’ would arise, that would cause tremendous wealth for everybody. Moreover, he asserted, that it was impossible to have inflation + recession. When his theory was implemented, it caused inflation + recession, the very thing he considered to be impossible.
Knowing that certain means lead to certain ends is not the same as knowing which means will lead to which ends. And it is even further more remote from an epistemology we can use to test whether this connection is economically valid.
You can derive many things from the understanding that certain means lead to certain ends. But economy, even Austrian economy, has failed to produce a principle we can use to test whether the ends we imagine will be the results we employ. Exactly there most discussions take place. Exactly there is where economy fails to deliver the goods.
Published: April 5, 2006 5:59 PM
Dear Geoffrey Alan Plauche
You have not understood my explanation.
I have not said that action is an assumption. On the contrary. I have said, that because it is irrefutable, because its denial is not imaginable, it is not an axiom, but an understanding.
I wanted to make clear, that action does not satisfy 'axiom-hood'.
Published: April 5, 2006 6:04 PM
Konrad, you state the following: "praxeology is a categorical system of grammatical rules that make the understanding of action explicit, and completely clear" and "But the truth of an axiom is not something you understand, but is something you assume."
It is just this that I am disputing, two distinct but related claims that you make actually. I dispute your claim that praxeology is merely a categorical system of grammatical rules. And I dispute your claim that we merely assume the truth of the action axiom.
We don't just assume the truth of the action axiom; we KNOW it is true and we can know this via negative demonstration (a la Aristotle). There is a good essay in JLS by Douglas Rasmussen entitled "A Groundwork for Rights: Man's Natural End" (http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/4_1/4_1_4.pdf) that makes this case well.
Praxeology is not merely a set of grammatical rules; its axiom and propostions have at once ontological and epistemological status. They are both laws of thought and laws of reality. They are true AND meaningful, and not merely assumed to be true.
Moreover, they are not PRE-scientific but fully scientific in the classical sense (obviously not in the modern positivist-empiricist sense, but it is just this latter sense that Austrians reject in the social sciences). Philosophy is also not pre-scientific but is itself a science in the same way. Granted philosophy has spun off many disciplines that used to be branches of it, but philosophy is not thereby relegated to merely correcting the now independent special sciences and establishing their foundations. Philosophy still has its own content and is still a science of that content even while it draws on the work of its "children" in many ways.
Again, to emphasize where we differ, I and most Austrians don't buy into the positivist and post-positivist conceptions of philosophy, logic, science, etc. We think it is fundamentally mistaken, especially with regard to the social sciences.
Published: April 5, 2006 6:34 PM
Misesian/Rothbardian/ Hoppean position...
For what it's worth, it is not true that Rothbard shared the same neo-Kantian epistimology as Mises and Hoppe. Rothbard subcribed to an empirical (in the broadest sense) basis for the statement 'Humans Act'. His stance was much more in line with the style of thought of Aristotle/Aquinas/Menger then Kant/Mises/Hoppe.
Interesting reading can be found in some articles by Prof. Barry Smith:
Published: April 5, 2006 6:37 PM
I forgot to add that the action axiom just IS an axiom because it is irrefutable, a primary, basic, 'prior to', and its denial is not imaginable.
Again, I think this comes down to our differing philosophical traditions.
Published: April 5, 2006 6:44 PM
Dear Geoffrey Alan Plauché.
“Konrad, you state the following: "praxeology is a categorical system of grammatical rules that make the understanding of action explicit, and completely clear" and "But the truth of an axiom is not something you understand, but is something you assume."
It is just this that I am disputing, two distinct but related claims that you make actually. I dispute your claim that praxeology is merely a categorical system of grammatical rules. And I dispute your claim that we merely assume the truth of the action axiom.”
You are still not reading me very well. I am stating, that what you call: ‘the action axiom’ is not an axiom. The truth of an axiom is not what is at stake here, but what I protest against is that what is called ‘the action axiom’. This is not an axiom, but something else. I call it an understanding.
What I tried to explain is how a logician looks at praxeology. An axiom is a statement that defines a domain of validity within a context. And an understanding is that context itself. That is the essence of my story. The rest is just ‘logical language’. Important, because logic, in particular modern logic (after Boole) makes certain things very precise. In particular, it shows that there is a distinction between truth and understanding. The logical denial of understanding is nonsense. The logical denial of truth is falsity. This is because if you deny understanding, you get ‘not understandable’ = ‘nonsense’.
The piece did not make a distinction between these two concepts. It argues that because ‘action cannot be denied’ because its logical denial is unintelligible, it is therefore an axiom. But this confuses the distinction between falsity and nonsense.
“We don't just assume the truth of the action axiom; we KNOW it is true and we can know this via negative demonstration (a la Aristotle).”
Yes. You base yourself on Aristotelian logic. But I base myself on Boolean logic, and later logics. These were vast improvements on the modal logic of Aristotle. In particular Boolean logic has demonstrated that Aristotle himself has overlooked some cases. This is because Aristotle was confined to ordinary language, while Boole succeeded in first lifting logic to the precision of arithmetic, and later to algebra.
According to Boolean logic there are two kinds of negative demonstrations. One within a context, and that is what is the basis of the idea of axiom. And there is the negative demonstration of the context itself. And that is exactly the way the article argues. The negative demonstration within a context leads to the concept of falsity, and the negative demonstration of a context leads to the concept of ‘nonsense’.
So what I present here, is basically something entirely new. At least in this community.
“There is a good essay in JLS by Douglas Rasmussen entitled "A Groundwork for Rights: Man's Natural End" (http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/4_1/4_1_4.pdf) that makes this case well.
Praxeology is not merely a set of grammatical rules; its axiom and propostions have at once ontological and epistemological status. They are both laws of thought and laws of reality. They are true AND meaningful, and not merely assumed to be true.”
Again, that is not what I disputed. I can very well see, that action exists. Just like I can see that freedom exists. (I have even an exact logical derivation of this fact.) Moreover, I dare even to say more. I dare to say, that the very fact that we can become conscious of action, i.e., that we are not only capable of action, but even understand the concept of action, is what makes us so much distinct from animals that we are a completely new form of existence.
What I mean is this. Living matter is not only essentially different from dead matter, but even fundamentally different. The difference is, that dead matter is only susceptible to the present, and therefore you can know everything there is to know about dead matter by the concept of causality as formulated by Newton. In particular Newton has invented a new mathematics, which enabled him to make the concept of causality precise. (The differential equation with time derivatives.) The surprise was, that all laws of nature contained time as a second derivative. Since a squared = (-a) squared, this means that for dead matter only the present exists. So for dead matter only the present exists.
Not so with life. Life is based on the DNA molecule, an information carrier. This means, that it is not enough to know the laws of physics to be able to derive all forms of life, and to predict what will happen if you put life forms together in some experiment. So with life a new structure forming force comes into existence, embodied in the DNA molecule. To explain the particular forms of animals fully you might need events into account that took place billions of years ago. This means that the difference between dead matter and living matter is a fundamental difference connected to time. Living matter is based on laws of nature and information carriers. They are a fusion of the present and the past. This is also, why animals are subjected to evolution. Dead matter is the environment. Animals survive by a process of random mutation and selection. They survive by adapting themselves to the environment.
There exist an equally big difference between Man and other life forms. Human beings have another way to deal with information. They do not only carry it, but they process it. Not only that, their very existence is built on their capacity to process information. This is because of the extensive neocortex they have
Mammals also have a neocortex. But it is something extra. Man is distinct from other animals because the neocortex has taken over. It is dominant. This manifests itself in the following way. We can, with our neocortex, imagine things that exist nowhere, and figure out how to make it real. We do this by processing information.
What this capability does is ‘turning the tables completely around’. We do not survive by adapting to the environment, but by adapting the environment to ourselves. We do this by the very capacity of imagining how things might be, and then designing actions that change our imaginations into actual experiences. In other words, we are future directed. And that is why we have stepped out of evolution. In fact, we can make use of evolution itself as one of the laws we understand.
So only for human beings the present, the past and the future exist. For dead matter only the present exist. And for animals only the present and the past exist. Animals lack the symbolic capability to imagine the future.
“Moreover, they are not PRE-scientific but fully scientific in the classical sense (obviously not in the modern positivist-empiricist sense, but it is just this latter sense that Austrians reject in the social sciences).”
I did not find these rejections convincing. Especially because I see a lack of understanding of the more powerful modern logic, which simply gives a deeper understanding in thinking than Aristotelian logic does.
“Philosophy is also not pre-scientific but is itself a science in the same way. Granted philosophy has spun off many disciplines that used to be branches of it, but philosophy is not thereby relegated to merely correcting the now independent special sciences and establishing their foundations. Philosophy still has its own content and is still a science of that content even while it draws on the work of its "children" in many ways.”
To begin with, historically speaking there was first philosophy, and then science. The very first true philosopher was Thales, (624 – 547 BC) who stimulated independent thinking. The very first scientist was Aristotle, (384 – 322 BC). So philosophy existed before science.
“Again, to emphasize where we differ, I and most Austrians don't buy into the positivist and post-positivist conceptions of philosophy, logic, science, etc. We think it is fundamentally mistaken, especially with regard to the social sciences.”
Probably that is why even Austrians failed to convince so much, that they became some kind of consensus. Indeed, within economy no theory has reached the level of acceptance like logic has within mathematics, the experimental method within physics and chemistry, and Darwin’s theory of evolution within biology. It does not have a test to differentiate between true and false statements. Economy, including Austrian economy has not yet an epistemology. That is why it is not a science. Astrology has lots of content. Psychology has lots of content. But they are not sciences either. More is needed to qualify as a science than content. What is needed is an epistemology. Some method we can use to make a distinction between true and false statements. That is why Aristotle was the first scientist, because he invented modal logic. That is, a test you can use to discriminate between true and false statements.
In other words, it is not content that determines whether a body of knowledge is science. What you need is a method you can use to distinguish true and false statements. It does not need to be the experimental test. Logic is enough to make mathematics a science. Physics needs the experimental test and logic. And biology needs evolution. So I do not subscribe to the vision that the empirical experimental test determines whether something is a science or not. But something is definitely not a science if it lacks an epistemology.
To be more precise, I have a lot of admiration for Rothbard. For I think that the connection he made between possession and rights is enough to make law into a full fledged science. The epistemology is then as follows: ‘whenever something is in violation with property rights, it is a form of injustice. Whenever some social measure is consistent with property rights, it is a form of justice. De Soto’s book is a beautiful illustration of this principle. Increasing the money supply goes against property rights, and therefore is a form of injustice, which has consequences. In other words, we can use Rothbard’s discovery to test social rules to see whether they are just or not.
But, again, such a clear epistemology is lacking within economy. In particular, economy revolves around value. And that is still an unsolved problem. Marginal utility is very close, but it is not it. Not yet at least. And that is why economy is not a science, although Austrian economics is the closest we have. At least the questions are now clear.
Published: April 5, 2006 8:10 PM
Konrad,
I did not argue, or did not intend to seem to argue, that philosophy is a science merely because it has a content of its own. I would argue that Aristotle (not Hegel or Husserl) made philosophy scientific or made philosophy into a science.
I must not understand what you mean when you say that Austrian economics lacks an epistemology. If anything, it has too many: Kantian/Misesian/Hoppeian, Mengerian, Rothbardian/Aristotelian-Thomist, and probably at least a couple more. I'm not satisfied with the Kantian/Misesian/Hoppeian variety and Rothbard did little more than refer us back to Aristotle and St. Thomas, but there are still epistemologies here. Roderick Long and I have been working on developing a better epistemological foundation for praxeology and Austrian economics. He's published a few things on this but I haven't yet.
You say that Boolean and other later logics are more powerful and precise than Aristotelian logic. That may be true, but I don't know enough about them to say. In any case, even if this is true it does not automatically follow that they are appropriate for use in social science in general or praxeology and economics in particular. (If I'm not mistaken I think Rothbard wrote something on this in one of his methodological pieces.) Aristotelian logic seems to work just fine for these fields and in Aristotelian logic the action axiom is indeed an axiom. I don't think social science is ever going to be as neat and simple (in terms of complexity and precision) as mathematics and the natural sciences. These sciences don't have to deal with vast numbers of interacting volitional beings. Further, there is a distinction to be made between meaningfulness and truth of praxeological propositions on the one hand and their thymological application on the other. It is particularly with the latter that things get messy, but as Aristotle would say...this is just the limitations of the subject matter. Also, one of the reasons that Austrian economics and praxeology have not caught on is because their metaphysical and epistemological foundations are not in favor right now because of the reigning popularity of positivism-empiricism-historicism; this doesn't in and of itself prove that the methods are somehow weak, wrong, or imprecise, or worse not yet a science. There may be some weak areas in Austrian economic theory, and even some dispute on some issues, but I don't think this makes Austrian economics not yet a science.
Published: April 5, 2006 8:35 PM
Granted that a distinction can be made between understanding and truth and between nonsense and falsity, the article would seem to at least implicitly argue that in the case of the action axiom understanding and truth coincide. Why is this a problem? Aside from the fact that axiom is defined differently in Boolean logic, that is. I still don't see why we should accept the definition of Boolean logic in place of what is accepted usage in the Austrian tradition.
Published: April 5, 2006 8:54 PM
Iceberg and Benjamin,
I would suppose that purely rational and possibly immortal (minus the occasional smelting accident) beings would have some interesting social relations, at least as compared to humans. Assuming that the robots are in fact individuals, with varying subjective preferences, natural(?) abilities and interests, I would imagine that, given action as a starting point, they would be able to deduce economic laws and rights quite easily. (How an entity like this would be a "robot" I'm not sure--perhaps I should be calling it an "AI".) Will they obey these postulates, vis-a-vis each other and other rational beings (meaning us)? I imagine so, unless they're threatened, in which case they would correctly postulate the right of self-defense.
My hope is that for the most part they'll probably act in concert when it suits their needs, make mutually-beneficial exchanges with other rational beings, and do things they find interesting. Y'know, mining Jupiter, stuff like that.
Paul,
I didn't say the axiom was flawed. "Humans act" merely ignores the possibility of other acting beings, that we haven't met or invented yet. :)
Published: April 5, 2006 9:44 PM
DID SOMEBODY SAY AXIOM? Say the word and they will come. Philosphy-boy 101 here to grind the conversation down to a halt.
Published: April 5, 2006 10:56 PM
Paul:
You have not yet addressed whether our innate ideas are being messed with. I propose that they might be, though I do not know. You propose that they most certainly are not - which is what you need to do to maintain that human action is an a priori synthetic truth - yet you give no reason. Nothing I have said here is contradictory. You failed to address the argument. The burden of proof is not on me, for all I claim is a possibility, it is on you, for you claim absolute certainty.
Once you admit (as you already have) that when/if the alien does appear, that it may become apparent that we do not act, then you no longer consider it a synthetic a priori truth. You need to retract your admission of possibility to continue to claim that human action is a synthetic a priori truth.
Mathematics being analytical does not mean that it has no application in the real world, it just means that the real world is not necessary for the truth of its propositions.
Regarding my comments about religion. What I was trying to do was show the ridiculousness of your argument. I should have given a more concrete example. Austrians believe in free-will, behaviourists do not. They both consider any attempt to convince the other as further proof of their own position. Do you believe we can prove free-will as well through argumentation ethics?
Regarding the specific excerpts from the article you quoted: "any logical analysis of action already presupposes its existence" etc. Why is this, logically speaking, any better than the behaviourist position: that any argument attempting to disagree with the behaviourist position is itself a confirmation of it, for no one could do anything if they were not determined to do so by their environment, genes, etc?
You claim that I am arguing like so, "I will act to argue that humans don’t act". This is incorrect, never have I claimed that humans do not act, only its possibility. My position should be rephrased this, "I will 'act', even though I may actually not be in control, to argue that humans might not act." How is this contradictory?
Brian:
Regarding Rothbard's methodology. I agree that he was not a strict Misesian, but his method is still subject to the same objections as I have raised againt Mises and Hoppe. Rothbard claimed the axiom of action was apodictic, even though he admitted like Mises and Hoppe that we cannot know if our innate ideas are being messed with, yet he did not acknowledge that this ignorance may mean that the axiom of action is false. Rothbard, like Mises and Hoppe, gives no reason for this.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:15 PM
zombie,
All of this is irelevant. Said "axiom" (platitude) might be true (well, yes, it is!) but it lacks any meaning. You cannot derive anything of interest from it without introducing definitions and further axioms, and there is the problem.
Which of the further axioms put forth by Austrian economists do you consider to be problematic?
The fact alone that it is so easy to assert the truth value of this axiom should make anyone suspicious. There is nothing of value in it.
I fail to see how the obvious truth of an idea bears on its usefulness.
Published: April 5, 2006 11:27 PM
Consider, by way of illustration and example (not proof), programming as it is usually carried out in imperative programming style - a sequence of actions. It is already established that imperative and functional programming styles are equivalent, in that anything that can be done one way can be rewritten the other way. Yet functional programming has no actions.
So it could very well be that the universe - in a cosmic, four or maybe more dimensional sense - just "is", and there is no such thing as action except as an illusion or a convenient fiction, a construct. Indeed, the Hamiltonian "principle of least action" works with the universe in just this sense, making its specialised term "action" mean an abstraction drawn from a static universe looked at more broadly than we are accustomed to look at it.
In such a universe and worldview, any "action" seeking to disprove or prove itself is merely a fiction applied to a fiction, and reveals nothing about the underlying nature of things but only about the nature of the construct.
This is where purely self-regarding arguments tend to fall down, by lacking any purchase on anything wider to establish the actual existence of their subject matter. But my brain still hurts when I look at the Ontological Argument.
Published: April 6, 2006 1:11 AM
Whenever a well-formed formula can be derived from an axiom, or a set of axioms, it is called true. And whenever a well-formed formula cannot be derived from an axiom or a set of axioms, it is false.
The second sentence above is false. (Gödel is best known for showing that arithmetic (actually, any suffiently powerful system) has well-formed formulae that cannot be derived from an axiom or a set of axioms, but which are not false). I think your final assertion about what is and is not an axiom derives from this error.
Once you admit (as you already have) that when/if the alien does appear, that it may become apparent that we do not act,
He said the alien could show up and say "no, you humans don't act! You're all just puppets in our hands. Hahahaha(evil laugh)!"; the alien can meaningfully say that, since it is not human, therefore there's no performative contradiction, but that doesn't mean it would "become apparent" that we do not act. What would it even mean for it to be apparent (to us) that we do not act? If I want to raise my left arm, I can do so; that is acting. Now, you could say that the alien is in control of "my" will, and can make me want to raise my left arm - but if alien controls me that way, I can't determine that I'm being controlled (i.e., it can't "become apparent" to me), because what I think of as "my mind" is really the controlling alien's; there's no "me" to become apparent to. On the other hand, if the alien is only in control of my physical body or something, so there's something (an "I") there to witness the alien's control, to which that control can be apparent, then in what way is it "me" that the alien is controlling? The alien is in control of the alien's (remotely-operated) body, which happens to carry my awareness around with it, but that's not a refutation of the action axiom (the human - body - certainly acts; it's just under the alien's control, not mine), merely a refutation of my assumption that I am human. If humans are not things independent of their bodies, your arguments are meaningless (and if they are, your arguments are pointless)
Published: April 6, 2006 6:16 AM
Geoffrey Alan Plauché.
“I did not argue, or did not intend to seem to argue, that philosophy is a science merely because it has a content of its own. I would argue that Aristotle (not Hegel or Husserl) made philosophy scientific or made philosophy into a science.”
Your argument sounds to me like: ‘because in living beings the full complexity of chemicals is revealed, Darwin has made chemistry into biology’.
This disregards the fact, that chemistry is based on a more wide epistemology, namely that of the experimental test. Biology requires something entirely different. Something that is not of a chemical nature at all. It requires that it is not in contradiction with the theory of evolution.
In the same manner, the focus on philosophy is different. It was Socrates who was most explicit in stating the most fundamental principle of philosophy, when he said:’ the only certainty I have is that nothing is certain’. In this statement he made a major shift from religion to philosophy.
Logically speaking, there are four most basic approaches with which human beings can deal with their faculty of self-formation, on which their lives depends. It all revolves around questions and answers.
Whenever somebody disregards both questions and answers, and considers them both to be unimportant, he is a mystic. Such a person uses his feelings, and his feelings alone as the guidance of his actions. (Many people have some mystique in them, when they assert: ‘this sounds good, but I have the feeling that something is missing’. Such a statement is an appeal to mysticism.)
Whenever somebody considers answers as the ‘sine qua non’, then he is a religious person. He wants a ‘Holy Book’ full of truths that enable him to ‘look up the solutions to any problem’, or at least a solution in principled form. Anything that goes against statements in this ‘Holy Book’ is considered to be ‘blasphemy’, which is tantamount to: ‘questions should be restricted to only those that make the statements in the Holy Book clear. All other questions are forbidden. That is why religious people are against questions, questioning, and therefore against thinking. It does not matter which book they consider as ‘beyond any question’, i.e., Holy. So you can have religions based on the Bible, the Thorah, The Bhagavat Gita, the Tao, but also on Mein Kampf, or on the Communist Manifest, and even on Human Action of von Mises himself. The book does not matter, but the impossibility of looking beyond the book is the issue. If you cannot doubt some book you accept as true, you are religious. If you can doubt anything, and have the guts to think through anything and everything, then you are a philosopher.
Philosophy is a complete breach with religious thinking. It dethrones answers as the ultimate, and places questions in its place. This is a major advance on religious thinking, because, typically, religious texts contain many contradictions, and therefore, from a logical perspective, they cannot be made comprehensible as a whole. They are not instances of understandings. In fact, the awareness of this point caused philosophy.
Understanding is the primary focus of philosophy, not truth. Before you can accept something as true, you must first know what it means. You must understand it. Moreover, even early philosophy has pointed to the danger that lies in accepting a truth. The basic statement is: Any answer can be transformed into a question. So whenever you accept something as truth, you deny that that statement can be transformed into a question, and therefore it stops thinking. By realizing this, philosophy has introduced a totally new approach to life. Before philosophy you were either a mystic, floating on emotions alone, a Believer, that is, somebody who accepted a certain body of knowledge as being true, or, if you had not yet found a body of knowledge you trusted, you were a seeker. The issue was certainty. And you could find it in some book, or some system. It is exactly this what Socrates went against.
Philosophy represents a totally different approach to ‘the human condition’. You could try to bear uncertainty. The price was constant uncertainty. The hero was Socrates. The gain was the ability to question everything, which led to ever deeper understandings and understanding. So truth had to make way for understanding.
So a real philosopher does not accept anything as true, and strives to find rest in extreme uncertainty. Courage replaces knowledge, something Socrates showed when he accepted to be poisoned for his position. He showed, in his action, that uncertainty itself can be a guidance.
And then there is the fourth approach. Science. It accepts both questions and answers. Science is the extreme opposite of mysticism, because mysticism denies both questions and answers. It is in contradiction with the religious approach, because it accepts questions, and it allows questioning of anything and everything. It is also in contradiction with philosophy, because philosophy declares that certainty is impossible. Only understanding is possible. Science asserts, that answers to questions are possible. But you can only arrive at this understanding, if you see that truth and certainty are distinct things. On another blog I have explained this matter. (See link below.) By denying the identification with truth and certainty, science allows both the acceptance of answers and the continuation of questions.
“I must(??) not understand what you mean when you say that Austrian economics lacks an epistemology. If anything, it has too many: Kantian/Misesian/Hoppeian, Mengerian, Rothbardian/Aristotelian-Thomist, and probably at least a couple more. I'm not satisfied with the Kantian/Misesian/Hoppeian variety and Rothbard did little more than refer us back to Aristotle and St. Thomas, but there are still epistemologies here. Roderick Long and I have been working on developing a better epistemological foundation for praxeology and Austrian economics. He's published a few things on this but I haven't yet.”
And that is exactly the point. Several answers to a question is tantamount to not having answered it. Moreover, you can even define the idea of‘question’ by being equivalent to ‘a set of answers containing more than one member’. For example, if I make the statement: ‘either it rains or it does not rain’, then this statement is equivalent to the question: ‘does it rain?’ It shows every possible answer to this question, and for this very reason it is not answering the question.
So your statement that there is not a single epistemology, but an abundance of them shows exactly my point. (This example also demonstrates, that a question is, logically speaking, a tautology. For ‘it rains or it does not rain’ is an instance of (p or not p) and that is a tautology. This is why Wittgenstein asserted that his Tractatus is the total clarification of clarification itself, and therefore the end of philosophy.) Logic is the ultimate clarification of the concept of question. Questions are tautologies. And tautologies are sets of several answers defining a complete domain of understanding.
So by your very own words, Austrian economy does not have an epistemology, but a question about epistemology. What it has is a set of possible answers, none of which have gained dominance over the others. And that is, logically speaking, the same as saying that the question about what is the proper epistemology for Austrian economics is not answered.
However, not all is lost. What it does have is a tautology. The tautology of Human Action. This represents an understanding.
Only when an economy has a single epistemology that is acknowledged as the method to use to distinguish true statements from false one’s, it is both scientific and it defines the particular science. This does not mean that there has to be only one epistemology, but it has to have an epistemology unique to its field.
Only mathematics has is a single epistemology. It is logic. Within physics there is logic, and a single method you can use to distinguish problems of physics from pure mathematical problems. It is the experimental method. So although all of physics has to be logical, logic does not define its field. The experimental method does.
Within biology there is a single method that distinguishes its field from physics. Biology must not be in contradiction with physics, and therefore you can make use of the epistemology of physics and also that of logic (as far as it is applicable). But it is more than just logic and physics, for it has an epistemology of its own, that defines and delineates its own particular field of investigation. The epistemology which statements are acceptable both as belonging to the field of biology and as true statements. It is Darwin’s theory of evolution. And as I stated before, I think that Rothbard’s connection between rights and property is a basis of an epistemology of justice. This means, that a theory of justice has to be logical, not in contradiction with physics and not in contradiction with biology. But the connection between right and property defines the unique demarcation between all of these other fields and the field of justice proper.
Economy also must satisfy logic, must not be in contradiction with physics, biology and also not with justice. But still these four epistemologies are not enough to define economy as a science. This is because it has no epistemology of its own. An epistemology that allows us to recognize statements as belonging to the field of economy, and also to make a distinction between true and false statements within this field.
Let me show you that there is even within Austrian economics a very important contradiction.
Economy revolves around value. That much is clear. (At least to me.)
But the concept of value is not completely clear. Not even the Austrians succeeded in making it completely clear. We still do not know what the statement ‘money has value’ means. In a logical strict sense you can even prove this in the following way. Money is one thing. (It used to be one commodity.) It obtains its value from everything offered in exchange for it. The problem is that all the products offered in exchange for money are so diverse, that no single characteristic has been found that they all have in common, and can therefore be used as the ‘defining characteristic of value’.
The problem is more serious than the ‘cardinal versus ordinal’ issue. Logic tells why. For all things that can be offered in exchange for money consists of a total set of possible answers to the question of value. Since they lack a single characteristic, this set is a multitude of answers, and therefore not a single answer. And therefore it is a question. (Note, that I apply the above insight into what questions are.) Only when all things offered in exchange for money have a single attribute in common, which can be recognized as the essence of value, the question about value has a single answer, and therefore is answered. When there is a multitude of answers, as is now the case, then you still have a question. For, as I said before, a question is equal to a set of answers. What you need to solve it is finding one characteristic that everything that has value has in common. Moreover, this must be cardinal, because money itself is cardinal. The best von Mises could do was putting an ordinal measure of value against a cardinal magnitude (the amount of money). This in itself shows confusion.
The problem of value still exists, despite the fact that many have tried to solve it. The Socialists have attempted it. They tried to connect it to labor, and labor alone. In particular they connected it with labor time. Since time is cardinal, labor time, as an instance of time, is also cardinal. But the wine cellar example of Eugen von Böhm Bawerk is such a clear counterexample, that this vision is totally refuted. (E.g. Wine matures, and therefore its value increases with interest, despite the fact that the maturation takes place, to paraphrase Eugen von Böhm Bawerk, without anyone lifting a finger. So the maturation of wine, the source of its increase of value is not labor. In fact, it is caused by leaving the wine alone, the very opposite of labor.) The same applies to wheat growing in the fields, or the steam engine running on fuel. If you want to explain value, labor fails. Forces of nature have to be taken into account too. Capital is more than just ‘the embodiment of labor’.
And even that is not the whole problem. For what to think about having the luck to find a precious diamond? Does this mean that coincidence has to be part of a universal explanation of value, too?
The connection of value with use also failed. It is the well-known value paradox, as explained by Menger. Some things that have a very limited use, like diamonds, have a lot of value. Other things that have a lot of use, like bread or the air we breathe do not have any value at all. So use and value are totally different things. Menger has made an important step in the solution of this problem, but he is not yet there. He is almost there. He does this by a fusion between utility and scarcity, the concept of marginal utility. This was an important breakthrough.
Marginal utility comes, I think, very close to a truly scientific solution to the problem of value. But there are difficulties with this too. Why? Because of yet another unsolved problem, the interest problem. In particular the time preference theory is not it. For it disregards the effect of production.
For assume, that money in the future has less value than money now, as is the point of departure of the time preference theory.
Now it is mentioned several times, beginning with Eugen von Böhm Bawerk, and taken over by other Austrians, that if you invest money in ever longer periods of time, then the production lines become longer. This means that more roundabout methods of production are then possible, which either lead to more products or to products of greater quality. So the longer a certain amount of money is invested, the more you can buy with it in the future, when you get it back. And this is tantamount to the assertion that money in the future, when invested is worth more than money now. This is the exact opposite of the time preference theory, which tries to explain interest by seeing it as a compensation of the loss of value due to the statement that money in the future is less valuable than money now.
I think this argument explodes the whole time preference theory of Eugen von Böhm Bawerk, and therefore refutes von Mises himself! The phenomenon of interest therefore is still an open question. It is not yet solved. Not by Eugen von Böhm Bawer, not by von Mises, who just asserts that time preference is a fundamental characteristic that follows directly from the ‘axiom of action’. It does no such thing! I consider this is a severe shortcoming within Austrian economics!
Mises tries to ‘wriggle himself out of this problem’ (which shows some awareness of it) by stating that Eugen von Böhm Bawerk is mistaken. He accuses Eugen von Böhm Bawerk of ‘falling back to the production vision on value’. (The famous third reason Eugen von Böhm Bawerk gives for the time preference concept.) But it is von Mises himself who is mistaken here. For he overlooks the argument of Eugen von Böhm Bawerk, although Eugen von Böhm Bawerk himself was in contradiction with himself, too.
Moreover, von Mises’ accusation misses every ground. I have studied Eugen von Böhm Bawerk extensively, and have seen that he asserts several times in his books, that the fact that more roundabout production leads to more physical production does not mean that it leads to more production of value. He even gives several examples, and is very careful in his wording whenever there is a danger of this particular misunderstanding of him. So Eugen von Böhm Bawerk was very well aware of the difference between the increase of physical production and the increase of value. In fact, he was more subtle than von Mises.
So there is no ‘falling back into the productivity theory of value’ within Eugen von Böhm Bawerk’s vision. Contrary to von Mises, Eugen von Böhm Bawerk knew that value and physical production could not possibly be totally independent. There had to be a connection. He sensed this, but he could not make it clear. Ludwig von Mises, on the other hand, just disregarded the whole problem by his statement, that time preference follows directly from ‘the axiom of action’. Von Mises ‘defined the problem away’.
“You say that Boolean and other later logics are more powerful and precise than Aristotelian logic. That may be true, but I don't know enough about them to say. In any case, even if this is true it does not automatically follow that they are appropriate for use in social science in general or praxeology and economics in particular.”
Yes it is. This is because Aristotelian logic is incorporated in Boolean logic. There is no essential difference. There is only a difference in both precision and power. Just like algebra is more powerful than arithmetic, and allows for a greater precision in definition, but both deal with the concept of magnitude. Regularities that you cannot become conscious of with arithmetic can become known with algebra.
“(If I'm not mistaken I think Rothbard wrote something on this in one of his methodological pieces.) Aristotelian logic seems to work just fine for these fields and in Aristotelian logic the action axiom is indeed an axiom.”
Let me give another counterexample. You cannot deny existence, because if you try to deny existence, then the denial exists! And therefore you need existence to deny existence. But does that imply that existence is an axiom? Does this make that ‘the axiom of existence’ is a new science? I do not think so. It is far better to call existence a tautology, and therefore a question. Furthermore, it is legitimate to talk about the philosophy of existence, dealing with the clarification of the existence of existence. This field exists. It is that subdomain of philosophy called ‘metaphysics’.
Or take consciousness. You cannot deny consciousness. Because if you try to deny consciousness you must make yourself conscious of the denial, and therefore you need consciousness to deny it. But does this mean, that consciousness is an axiom? Moreover, does this clarify consciousness? Does it make ‘the axiom of consciousness’ to be a basis for a science?
Logically speaking it is far more precise, and also far more clear to say that consciousness is a tautology, and therefore a question. Furthermore, it is legitimate to talk about the philosophy of consciousness, dealing with the implications of consciousness itself. This is also a subfield of philosophy. It is called ‘existentialistic phenomenology’. Here, in Holland, professor Luijpen was one of its most distinguished representatives.
“I don't think social science is ever going to be as neat and simple (in terms of complexity and precision) as mathematics and the natural sciences. These sciences don't have to deal with vast numbers of interacting volitional beings.”
Such statements are always dangerous. At one time people said it would be impossible for us to be able to fly, or to go to the moon. They were wrong. The television was declared to be impossible, because the magnetic field of the earth was so omnipresent and so irregular, that the precision needed could never be reached. They were wrong. At one day solid state physics was declared to be impossible because of the complexity of matter. Steady progress has been made in that area also.
Any argument based on ‘it is too complex, therefore it is unsolvable’ has been regularly refuted. I mention Chaos theory, Complexity theory, Fractal theory. Within the computer world there is even a revolution going on. It is understood that there is a fundamental difference between understanding and calculation. Therefore present day computers calculate, but are unable to understand. But slowly it becomes clear how a truly understanding device might look like. This means, that although you cannot make a computer that replaces, say, a taxi driver, it will become possible to make some other device, based on an entirely different principle, that might embody genuine understanding, and is able to do so.
“Further, there is a distinction to be made between meaningfulness and truth of praxeological propositions on the one hand and their thymological ?? application on the other. It is particularly with the latter that things get messy, but as Aristotle would say...this is just the limitations of the subject matter.”
Do you mean ‘etymological’? The term ‘thymological’ does not exist. Etymology is about the origin of words, and therefore using it in a sentence together with ‘application’ is gibberish. In other words, I cannot make heads or tails from this statement.
“”Also, one of the reasons that Austrian economics and praxeology have not caught on is because their metaphysical and epistemological foundations are not in favor right now because of the reigning popularity of positivism-empiricism-historicism; this doesn't in and of itself prove that the methods are somehow weak, wrong, or imprecise, or worse not yet a science. There may be some weak areas in Austrian economic theory, and even some dispute on some issues, but I don't think this makes Austrian economics not yet a science.”
In other words, Austrian economics fails to convince. Arguments like ‘the reigning popularity’ are instances of a logical fallacy, called the Ad Hominem error. (By von Mises himself.) As I demonstrated in the above example of the interest problem, there are still problems within Austrian economics itself. It is because even Austrian economics has failed to solve these problems, or, worse, even denies some very important one’s by defining them away, why Austrian economics has not caught on. At least that is what I think.
Moreover, the acceptance of positivism-empiricism-historicism is not just because they are popular, but also because they have proved their worth. In particular positivism, as explained by Popper, has shown how, exactly, the connection between existence and thinking occurs. In particular, Popper has demonstrated that the so-called induction problem is a wrong question. He has, with his white swan example, explained exactly what the problem is.
For more on this, see my previous participation in another blog.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/004806.asp
Published: April 6, 2006 7:23 AM
“Whenever a well-formed formula can be derived from an axiom, or a set of axioms, it is called true. And whenever a well-formed formula cannot be derived from an axiom or a set of axioms, it is false.”
“”The second sentence above is false. (Gödel is best known for showing that arithmetic (actually, any suffiently powerful system) has well-formed formulae that cannot be derived from an axiom or a set of axioms, but which are not false). I think your final assertion about what is and is not an axiom derives from this error.””
Ah! A logician! Very good! I already wondered whether there were people who would notice this on this blog.
I did not want to go into this depth, and therefore I simplified it somewhat. But to answer you, it is not as simple as you say. You are right as far as first order systems is concerned. Those consisting of only a finite number of axioms. Indeed, what Gödel showed is that there are systems of first order logic that are not complete. This means, that there are statements that are true within the system, but that cannot be derived from the axioms. That is his famous incompleteness theorem.
However, it has been proved that any second order system of propositional logic can be made complete and consistent. With this proof you can construct propositional logic, consisting of a number of axiom schemes (one being the minimum) that has an infinite number of instances. If you add the modus ponens rule to that, you can produce all tautologies. If you add to this system any wf, you get an incomplete system. This second order incomplete system can be made complete by a procedure consisting of an infinite number of steps. This procedure is used in the proof that this system produces all tautologies. In other words, that the set of all theorems (logical deductions) and the set of all tautologies are the same.
It was Gödel himself that proved, that something similar can be done with predicate logic. So if you extend the above system to second order predicate logic, it can be made complete. The system does no longer consist of tautologies, though. It now consists of something more general, called logical truths. The system is then no longer decidable.
My assertion about what is and what is not an axiom does not arise from this error, because I had a second order system in mind. In particular the second order system of propositional logic, consisting of an infinite number of axioms. For this system my second statement is valid.
Published: April 6, 2006 7:52 AM
Konrad wrote:
This is the exact opposite of the time preference theory, which tries to explain interest by seeing it as a compensation of the loss of value due to the statement that money in the future is less valuable than money now.
You totally misunderstand the concept of Time Preference. It is not used to explain the interest rate as compensation due to money being less valuable in the future (What money? Fiat or hard currency? Why money?). Time Preference is the totally human attitude of wanting something NOW rather than later, and the interest rate is how much a person is willing to give to have something sooner than later. It does not apply to money only.
Published: April 6, 2006 10:06 AM
Konrad,
"Your argument sounds to me like: ‘because in living beings the full complexity of chemicals is revealed, Darwin has made chemistry into biology’."
That's not what I'm trying to say and I think it is a stretch to interpret what I did write as meaning that. Konrad, your conception of philosophy is one conception among several, if not many. Not everyone accepts that philosophy is only about questioning and asking the right questions. Certainly, Aristotle did not. A philosopher seeks answers as well. I'm not saying, of course, that all answers in philosophy will be universalizable or as certain and constant as physical laws and constants discovered by physics. Radical skepticism (in the classical sense) is only one approach to philosophy and a very un-Aristotelian one. You talk about mystics as rejecting questions and answers but on other accepted definitions of mysticism Plato and maybe Socrates as well qualify as mystics, as would many religionists. Some conceptions of mysticism is that it is a contemplation of the ineffable. Other conceptions see the essence of mysticism as the alleged possession of un-rational, un-empirical, privileged knowledge from a divine source. You are trying to impose your conceptions of these subjects on us without attempting to see whether we accept them, hold different views, or giving us good reasons to accept your view of the matter over ours.
I argue, and others will as well, that all knowledge and science ultimately rest upon and presuppose at least a few axioms (in the Aristotelian sense) that are meaningful, make possible and constitute our understanding, and are true and a criterion of truth. To be more precise I think Aristotle can be viewed as a negative coherentist/broad neoclassical foundationalist on knowledge and justification, and a narrow neoclassical foundationalist on scientific demonstration/explanation/understanding. While Aristotle's views of exact science and scientific demonstration may not be wholly justified for the natural sciences, I think they are still appropriate for philosophy and the social sciences. If you doubt the truth of certain basic axiom, first principles, or laws (such as existence, identity, consciousness, action, non-contradiction, causality, excluded middle) then you are doing neither philosophy nor science (insofar as these are distinct) because all knowledge and scientific understanding presuppose their validity.
"And that is exactly the point. Several answers to a question is tantamount to not having answered it."
Not necessarily. That's like Alasdair MacIntyre arguing that because there is no current agreement on moral principles, then there is no way to rationally justify our moral beliefs. Some answers are better than others and it is quite possible in today's political and educational environment and given the difficulty of the subject matter for wrong answers to co-exist side by side with correct or at least more correct answers.
Your standards for what counts as science, Konrad, seem to be unrealistically high. Moreover, those high standards seem to conradict your forceful insistence on eschewing certainty. You want correct answers or it doesn't count as science. Well, that would rule out a good deal of what passes even as natural science.
"In other words, Austrian economics fails to convince. Arguments like ‘the reigning popularity’ are instances of a logical fallacy, called the Ad Hominem error. (By von Mises himself.)"
Citation? This is not a logical fallacy or, to be more precise, an ad hominem. It is quite true and relevant and reflects an understanding of history and human psychology. I'm not attacking anyone in general or in particular.
" “I don't think social science is ever going to be as neat and simple (in terms of complexity and precision) as mathematics and the natural sciences. These sciences don't have to deal with vast numbers of interacting volitional beings.�
Such statements are always dangerous."
Dangerous? Or good ol' Soc