Comments (3)

• Mark Sunwall

  An important Rothbard piece which Mises Institute seems to feel is worthy of reproducing from time to time. It is unfortunate that it has been set in amber, short of the solution to the problem which both the hermenuticians and Rothbard were looking for. The problem, if I may be so rude as to say, goes back to Mises himself. Mises integrated quite a bit of neo-Katianianism into Human Action and in an effort to make his methodological premises impregnable raised up a praxiology/thymology distinciton which was equivalent to the phenomena/noumena distinction in Kantian epistemology. In other words "psychology" plays the part of the thing-in-itself and is given a new name in order to make it taboo. This makes a lot of sense if you want to see economics as a branch of the sciences. It makes less sense if, as Rothbard himself pointed out, economics falls on the humanities side of the human/nature methodological dualism implicit in the Misesian paradigm. Anti-psychologism means that one wants to do "economics" rather than "political economy." So the hermenuticists were in fact right (and Rothbard seems at times to admit as much) in their appeals to rhetoric in contrast to techics. Unfortunately they took on too much of the garbage of post-1933 German philosophy. This had nothing to do with any penchant for authoritarianism, but rather a matter of being overly impressed by the ubiquitous relativism of American academia (Rorty et. al.). The decideratum is, as Rothbard notes, the distincition between "noble rhetoric" which refuses to avail itself of faulty inferences, and "sophistical rhetoric" which is played as a mental game to win. Unfortunately Rothbard himself, though a practicing "noble rhetorician" defined himself as a neo-scholastic...showing that he was reacting to the hermenuticists in much the same, self-destructive, way that the hermenuticists reacted against logical positivism. Unless Austrians rethink the anti-psychologistic premise embeded in Mises' quasi-Kantian epistemology they will always be despised outsiders in the world of positivistic economics. Instead they should take up the mantle of Ciceronian humanism and define themselves as rhetorical leaders of the libertarian movement who happen to also be political economists.

  Mark Sunwall

  Published: October 13, 2006 9:16 PM

• David K. Meller

  Once again, thank you Prof. Rothbard!!

  A criticism, or deconstruction, of hermeneutical nonsense--the meaning of the politics of the meaningless--is long overdue. This essay did the job.

  It is quite true that this war on common sense, on sound social science (what there is of it), and even of intellectual discorse worthy of human beings has been undertaken on a colossal scale by these frauds and ignoramuses.

  People who say that truth is "relative", "subjective" or based on a "class-consciousness" are self-refuting and should be acknowledged as such. They certainly should NEVER have a free ride to override their betters not only in philosophy, but in all of the humane sciences. Every effort to reestablish the social sciences on a sound and intelligent basis, including your essay, Prof. Eothbard, is praiseworthy and necessary.

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: October 14, 2006 1:12 PM

• Maddy

  Sadly, the "why do I need to keep an open mind on arguments that are obvious" is used the most by people who find all of their brilliant arguments obvious, and any competitor's deserving scorn and ridicule. No matter how tough the subject matter, their logic is so infalliable, why should they have to keep an open mind to anyone else?

  Published: October 19, 2009 4:18 PM