Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics

32 <strong>Handbook</strong> on contemporary Austrian economics
meanings. It is not controversial to assert that ours is a science of meaning.
As Mises (1963, p. 51 ; emphasis added) wrote, "the task of the sciences of
human action is the comprehension of the meaning and relevance of human
action."
Alfred Schutz's work, perhaps more than any other Austrian's, has
attempted to clarify exactly what we mean when we describe praxeology,
the science of human action, as a science of meaning. As Schutz points
out, "meaning is a certain way of directing one's gaze at an item of one's own
experience" ([1932] 1967, p. 42; original emphasis). Saying that an individual's
experience is meaningful, Schutz explains (ibid., p. 41), is to say that
he, by selecting it out of his wealth of experiences and reflecting on it, has
constituted it as such. Attaching meaning is an act of conscious will. We
consciously direct our gaze to this or that event that has happened in the
past, this or that opportunity that has presented itself in the present or this
or that outcome that might occur in the future and, in so doing, we make
that lived experience, current circumstance, or expected result meaningful.
Subjective experiences, perceptions, and expectations do motivate actions,
they can be what Schutz (ibid., p. 91) calls "genuine because motives" of
actions, but they do not constitute the (sole) meaning of an action.
In which other way, then, are purposeful actions meaningful What else,
besides "genuine because motives," constitutes the meaning of a purposeful
action According to Schutz (ibid.), the "in-order-to motive" of that
action also constitutes its meaning. As he writes (ibid., p. 61), " the meaning
of any action is its corresponding projected act" (original emphasis). Before
a person acts, she first chooses a goal. Next, she imagines the completed
act. She then thinks of the intermediate goals that she must accomplish in
order to complete the projected act. Her projection of the completed act is
what motivates her action. Her actions and the intermediate actions that
are required to complete the projected act are meaningless apart from the
project that defines them (ibid., p. 63). She moves in order to bring about
the act that she imagines. Think of a person's desire to read a book that is
currently in her library down the hall. After deciding on the goal (retrieving
and reading the book), she imagines the completed act (her reading
the book at her desk in the bedroom) and the different actions she needs
to perform in order to complete the act (getting up from her desk, opening
the bedroom door, walking down the hall, entering the library, finding the
book, walking back to her bedroom, sitting down ~t her desk, opening
the book, and beginning to read). Her actions then are rightly understood
as actions undertaken in order to complete the project (retrieving and
reading the book at her desk). Her end goal, her in-order-to motive, is
what constitutes the meaning of her actions.
According to Schutz (ibid., p. 31), "the scientific method of establishing