Handbook on Contemporary Austrian Economics

The facts of the social sciences are what people believe and think 33
subjective meaning is motivational understanding." It requires a consideration
of an actor's motives not just his external behavior. Getting at the inorder-to
motives, however, would seem to require that we heroically gain
access to the internal worlds of their subjects. Indeed, observation alone is
not likely to do the trick. Although observation may allow us to guess the
ends and projected acts that give meaning to an action, even with simple
acts, observation alone cannot reveal the meanings behind an individual's
action. At the very least, the observer must possess some insight into the
means-ends framework that the person is employing. Additionally, the
observer would need some sense of which ends are within bounds and
which the person being observed is likely to have ruled out. Absent these,
the observer would be unable to determine whether an action was successful
or not, whether the individual intended the outcome that occurred or
was surprised by it, whether it was an intermediate step that was part of a
more complex plan, or an independent act that should be considered on
its own.
Kirzner (1976) makes a similar point using the simple example of a
Martian doing research by looking at the earth through his telescope. If
this Martian, Kirzner notes, were to train his telescope on any large US city
he would eventually notice a fairly obvious pattern. First, he would notice
rows of boxes. Next, he would observe that smaller boxes pass in front of
these rows of boxes at regular intervals. He would additionally discover
that once a day when the smaller boxes passed in front of the larger boxes
bodies would emerge out of the larger boxes, move toward the smaller
boxes and would then be swallowed by the smaller boxes. A Martian
researcher observing this pattern may very well postulate "a definite law,
the law of moving boxes and bodies" (Kirzner, 1976, p. 45). In developing
this law, however, because the law does not give us any insight into the
meanings behind the movements of these bodies and boxes, the Martian
researcher "has not told us everything there is to be learned about this situation.
A theory of moving bodies and boxes that does not draw attention
to the dimension of purpose gives a truncated picture of the real world"
(ibid.). Luckily, we are able to go further, to construct more meaningful
social theories of human actions, than the researcher from Mars.
Lavoie (1991) has convincingly argued, however, that embracing subjectivism
need not mean relying on introspection alone. That we have so
much in common with one another is an important tool for social scientists,
and a very real advantage that they have over natural scientists and
Martian researchers studying human beings who cannot simply engage in
introspection to gain insights about their subject matter. But, social scientists,
Lavoie (ibid., p. 481) points out, have more at their disposal than
introspection. Rather than having to penetrate into "the thought process