Thanks for taking the time to write this outstanding and scholarly essay. I found it highly readable and very illuminating as a summary of issues spread across three Mises books. I’m sure it will be a valuable reference article for students of Mises’ thought for a long, long, time.

Barry Linetsky
Toronto

The Best of Times

You are therefore drawing false conclusions. In fact, if you read his next line, he talks of why you cannot ‘trust’ public opinion. ‘Trust’ for what? That should show you the error in your conclusion.

Once we’re talking about explaining empirical events we are talking about history. Whether a particular theory agrees with the empirical evidence can’t tell you whether or not the theory is valid; it just isn’t applicable. It’s not just about controlled experiments, but also of being able to dissect every individual piece of datum that makes up the evidence, given that historical events tend to be very complex.

Thanks

A priori does not mean one’s thinking is apart from reality; after all, even abstract thinking is an experience of its own, albeit an ‘experience’ that can be made to apply to a variety of different situations, e.g. business cycle theory applicability to the Great Depression and the 2000s housing bubble, among other historical events.

The point is that even empiricists require their logical frameworks by which to understand the world; facts must correspond to such logical frameworks for a theory to be considered sound. No matter what empirical basis you have, you will always have to argue your point on the basis of a certain interpretation, i.e. a framework apart from specific events.

Experience can only provide us with the variables that make up a problem, but it is only through logical deduction apart from specific examples that these variables are made sensible. Hence the a priori approach.

Are you serious about rejecting subjective valuation? How can you even get around the contradictions of other value theories without recognizing subjectivity? And the matter of anarchism and IP are not related to the issues at hand.

When it comes to epistemology and metaphysics, Rothbard and Rand were quite similar: they believed in a literal ‘free will,’ for one thing, as though human choices were isolated events from other phenomena in the universe. Both also had a more ‘objective’ view of the world, in comparison to Mises’ Kantian orientation, hence a significantly more shallow philosophy of Rand (e.g. incessant proclaiming of ‘A is A,’ as if non-contradiction was being disputed at all by Kant).

And in spite of Rothbard’s praise of ‘Theory and history,’ I doubt he grasped its philosophical premises, as seems to be the case in the ‘Economic controversies’ compilation.

You’re a commenter of a rare sort here–just plain full of shit.

Yes, that was my point. Knowledge of reality can only come from reality, which one acquires via data gathered from the senses. There is no such thing as “apriori” knowledge if you mean that you can somehow gain knowledge prior to any sensory experience.