Source link: http://archive.mises.org/4450/quarterly-journal-of-austrian-economics-8-no-3-fall-2005/
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 8, no. 3 (Fall 2005)
December 19, 2005 by Mises Institute Publications
Volume 8, no. 3 (Fall 2005)
THE INSULATION ARGUMENT IN NEOCLASSICAL INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: A CRITIQUE by Bogdan Glavan. Among the arguments advanced by mainstream economists in favor of independent fiat currencies, the thesis that the exchange rate completely insulates the economy from changes in foreign prices has a central importance…
HERMENEUTIC ECONOMICS: BETWEEN RELATIVISM AND PROGRESSIVE POLYLOGISM by Pierre Perrin. Confronted with the limitations of formalism, many economists have adopted alternative epistemological approaches which are supposed to favor a better understanding of economic phenomena…
WHAT AUSTRIAN SCHOLARS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT LOGIC (AND WHY) by Steven Yates. Why is logic, usually thought of as a branch of philosophy, important to Austrian scholars, most of whom are economists and not
philosophers?…
THE GOLD STANDARD IN CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES TEXTBOOKS: A SURVEY by James Kimball. Throughout much of modern history, gold served as the commodity that most widely facilitated free exchange. While its virtues as a medium-of-exchange were clear to people of previous eras…
INTEREST: IN DEFENSE OF MISES by J. PATRICK GUNNING. Guido Hülsmann advances the revolutionary idea that Austrian economists ought to base their concept of originary interest on the spread between the value of an end and the value of the means used to achieve the end…
ENERGY: THE MASTER RESOURCE, by Robert L. Bradley and Richard W. Fulmer. Reviewed by Pierre Desrochers. Despite its obvious economic and social importance, energy (broadly understood) is an understudied field…
WHEN STATES FAIL: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES, edited by Robert I. Rotberg. Reviewed by Edward Stringham. Do weak governments around the globe merit assistance? The premise of this book is that without strong government, society devolves into chaos…
{ 3 comments }
I sure hope that Steven Yates isn’t pulling a sequel to the Sokal Hoax.
I was most interested in Yates’ article about logic. It was pretty good, but I’m not sure he answered his own questions adequately. Logical deduction works if the premises are true and no logical fallacies or mistakes are made. Basic premises usually try to be grounded in being “self-evident”: ‘I think, therefore I am’, ‘Existence exists’, or ‘man acts’. Yet, such premises could only be self-evident if one observes or experiences them. Thus, any a priori argumentation would seem to necessarily be founded upon, if not empiricism proper, at least empirical evidence. Empirical/a priori thus seem to be wedded in a fashion, both being necessary.
One could create premises in any way one wanted to, naturally, but any logical deductions based on such premises would not necessarily have any basis or value in reality. Only premises founded in reality, and thus based on some kind of empirical evidence, can let a priori logical deduction create meaningful results that correspond to reality.
But I’m no philosophy professor–maybe I’ve missed or overlooked something.
You are on the right track, more or less. To put as simply as possible what I believe you are questioning. Academia, whether the hallowed halls are in Vienna, or London, teaches, and its sausage factory ‘products’ pass on, attempts to apply logic to something which functions totally illogically when viewed by the mass perspective.
Economics, as it functions, is only logical to those who are in a controlling position to apply the cause to produce THEIR desired effect.
People are fooled into accepting Economics as a pure science because it is classified thus by Academia and its degree system. But NOTHING that is based on human behaviour can be expected to be proved by empirical examination. You can only ever have theories, there can be no rigid laws that will produce the ever constant result for everyone, at everytime.
Logic is for physics, not for something which can be manipulated – AND IS – CONSTANTLY!.
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