Comments on: Menger the Empiricist

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:35:54 +0000

Those words are philosophical terminology – I would expect anyone debating method to be familiar with them. Rather, when I say Mises and Hoppe are obfuscating, I mean that their explanations are, and that they perhaps do not fully explain what it is that the Austrians are doing, and why our method is superior. For instance, this emphasis on the rationalist/empiricist dichotomy is misleading, and perhaps induces many to think we pay no regard to empirical reality whatsoever. My point is simply that Geoffrey’s article provides, in my opinion, a closer account of the method Austrian economists actually use, and also which is closer to that which Menger himself described.

For the purposes of explaining the Austrian method to the layman, though, that definition you brought up is perfectly good.

By: P.M.Lawrence

P.M.Lawrence — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:38:48 +0000

No offence intended, but I’d say Anthony’s remarks are a bit obfuscating themselves, no doubt unintentionally, what with using words like “Aristotelianism” and “praxeology” that people won’t make sense of unless they’ve already got the subject down.

How about this instead, from Routledge’s Dictionary of Economic Terms about a century ago:-

Austrian School of Political Economy: A name given to a number of Austrian economists, who prefer the Deductive to the Inductive Method of study. They believe the theory of value to be the most important part of the study of Political Economy, but develop it from a more psychological than mathematical standpoint. Among the most famous writers mention may be made of Menger, Wieser, and Boehm-Bawerk [sorry, I had to put "oe" for "o-with-umlaut"].

Before you say that “Deductive Method” and “Inductive Method” also need to be clarified, the dictionary has short entries on those too.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:12:40 +0000

Geoffrey, I simply think it is the best piece of writing I have yet to see on the Austrian method. Aside from your goal of shifting praxeology back to an Aristotelian basis, it is the exposition of how praxeological theorems are formed that I find most useful. If possible I think you and other similarly inclined authors should try and write a book on the matter.

By: Sag

Sag — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:42:12 +0000

What a great blog post. This really gets to heart of the matter on the origins of Autrian/neoclassical divide.

By: Geoffrey Plauche

Geoffrey Plauche — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:04:19 +0000

Thanks for the plug Anthony. Hopefully I will get around to revising that paper and submitting it to a journal sometime soon.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 05:43:32 +0000

Professor Klein,

Thank you for this post. Like many other sections of Professor Hulsmann’s Mises biography, I have found his discussion of Menger’s (and for that matter Wieser’s) work and influence especially informative.

While much of importance can be lost in a short phrase, I have always found the term “causal-realistâ€, which I believe was coined by Professor Salerno, to best summarize the approach to economic theory arguably initiated by Menger. His approach focuses on cause and effect, as opposed to mutual determination, and on explaining economic phenomena as they exist in the real world, as opposed to a non-existent and logically unachievable world that has been created by economists through unrealistic, idealizing assumptions.

Economic science is in debt to Carl Menger.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:26:51 +0000

I think that all these references to empiricism vs rationalism are confusing at best, and damaging at worst. They obfuscate what method Austrianism actually uses (namely an emphasis on praxeological theory and its fundamental nature, being necessary to interpret any economic statistics – NOT a dismissal of empirical facts as being useful, which is what many commonly think Austrians are in fact advocating.)

These new writings on Menger would square with G. A. Plauche’s excellent article on Aristotelianism and praxeology.

http://www.veritasnoctis.net/docs/aristotelianapriorism.pdf