What is a Causal-Realist Approach?
Here I Joseph introduce a series of lectures that are the basis of an exciting new book on the Austrian School that is currently in the works.
The subtitle "A Causal-Realist Approach" refers to a broad movement in economic science that flourished during the period 1871–1914 that began with Carl Menger. This movement included not only Austrian economists but also British, American, Swedish, French, Italian and Dutch economists. [John Bates Clark, Frank A. Fetter and Herbert J. Davenport in the United States; Philip Wicksteed And William Smart in Great Britain; Knut Wicksell in Sweden; Augusto Graziani in Italy; and Paul Leroi-Beaulieu and Maurice Block in France.]
Menger emphasized that economics was a unified science involving the search for cause-and-effect relationships or causal laws ("exact laws") that would explain the prices, wages, and interest rates actually observed in reality.
Comments (5)
Is Joe Salerno related to a professor of philosophy at St. Louis University of the same name, or is that just a coincidence?
Published: October 8, 2007 8:47 AM
I've started listening to these lectures on the Mises media. Very good stuff. Dr Salerno is a great speaker too.
Published: October 8, 2007 11:01 AM
Why not put all the videos on youtube instead of hosting them yourselves. This could save a lot of bandwidth costs.
Published: October 8, 2007 12:29 PM
I'm recording something while streaming it, so I haven't watched the video yet, but I wanted to put in a plug for Overcoming Bias. It's a great site in general, but I'd guess many here are interested in epistemology, and it's great for that. Since the issue of a priori deduction vs empiricism is a big one dividing Austrians from the mainstream, the latest there, A Priori deals with whether our goal is to attain the truth or persuade others, and its predecessor How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 is possibly better on similar subject matter.
Published: October 8, 2007 7:59 PM
Why not host them all on youtube? becuase youtube only accepts 60 mins, and we don't want to break the lectures into two parts. We do youtube in a pinch but mostly it doesn't work for our stuff.
Published: October 8, 2007 10:28 PM