Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

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MISES AND LACHMANN ON HUMAN ACTIONthat the various ‘theorems’ of marginal analysis that have beendeductively arrived at are also necessary to comprehend humanaction, then this is a substantially stronger claim. In other words,why exactly are the concepts of ‘buying’, ‘selling’, etc., beingintroduced in connection with ‘praxeological reasoning’?One way of reconstructing the argument is as follows. Mises doesrecognise that, in order to ‘have’ a concept, we must both be able tothink coherently with it and to recognise things in the world towhich it applies. Consequently, Mises could be taken as arguingthat, unless we know how to use the concept of, say, ‘buying’, wewould discern only unintelligible motions. We must be capable ofapplying the type concept ‘buying’ to any individual actions that fallunder this type. Further, presumably if we are to construct aneconomic theory concerned with the activity of buying, then wemust be able to locate this concept, and thus use it in thinking,within a system of other concepts.However, if Mises’s argument is reconstructed in this form, thena number of problems surface. First, it is not clear why suchconcepts can claim an a priori status: they may just be learned, say,through socialisation. Second, the a priori categories Mises isconcerned with must be both necessary and universal. This couldmean either that all concepts are required in order to comprehendall possible human actions, or that all are required in order tocomprehend each individual action. The former is considerablyweaker than the latter, and would seem to run foul of the problemdiscussed in more detail below. It would seem to require that weknow which concepts to apply to which actions, although it is onlythrough these concepts that we can comprehend any actions at all.This leaves the third possible interpretation of Mises’s argument,which appears relevant to statements such as:No report about any man’s conduct can do without referenceto the praxeological a priori. There is no human action thatcan be dealt with without reference to the categoricalconcepts of ends and means, of success and failure, of costs,profit or loss.(Mises 1990:49)This implies that, in order to conceive the meaning of any actionwhatsoever, we must be able to apply concepts such as ‘costs’ andloss’ to it. This suggests that Mises is attempting to establish thatconceiving the meaning of any action requires all the concepts39
STEPHEN D.PARSONSrelevant to a marginal analysis. It is extremely difficult to appreciatehow such an extravagant claim could be defended.This problem is compounded by a related issue. Mises subscribesto the Cartesian assumption that it is the content of our ownconsciousness that can be most reliably known, and this forms thebackground to the attempt to indicate how various a priori conceptscan be determined. Consequently, his ‘natural’ assumption is that, asthese concepts are necessary in order to grasp the meaning of anyaction, and as ‘we’ act, they can be arrived at through anexamination of our own consciousness:To the obvious question, how a purely logical deduction fromaprioristic principles can tell us anything about reality, wehave to reply that both human thought and human actionstem from the same root in that they are both products of thehuman mind.(Mises 1990:11)The various problems indicated earlier cannot be avoided. Misesmoves from the phenomenological concern with experiencingaction to the epistemological concern with our knowledge of action,from a priori concepts to the concepts of marginal analysis, frompraxeology to economic theory. At one level, Mises can beinterpreted as starting from the premise that we must assume andascribe rationality to individual actors in order to identify their‘movements’ as actions in the first place. This indicates that wecannot identify human action independently of the a priori conceptsthat permit this identification in the first place. However, thisargument becomes confused with that of establishing the ‘truths’ ofmarginal analysis. Further, given the lack of discrimination betweenphenomenological and epistemological concerns, Mises thinks he isjustified in adopting a ‘first person’ approach. Consequently, giventhe argument that thought and action spring from ‘the same root’,Mises thinks that we can arrive at deriving the concepts of marginalanalysis solely from analysing thought:However, what we know about our action under givenconditions is derived not from experience, but from reason.What we know about the fundamental categories ofaction…is not derived from experience. We conceive all thisfrom within.(Mises 1981:13–14)40
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Page 6 and 7: SUBJECTIVISM ANDECONOMICANALYSISEss
Page 9 and 10: CONTENTSNotes 57References 594 Lach
Page 11 and 12: CONTENTS10 Expectations and stock m
Page 14 and 15: 1INTRODUCTIONRoger Koppl and Gary M
Page 16 and 17: INTRODUCTIONdirection of Israel Kir
Page 18 and 19: INTRODUCTIONand revising plans, det
Page 20 and 21: INTRODUCTIONAs the language of Lach
Page 22 and 23: INTRODUCTIONits deep insight and me
Page 24 and 25: INTRODUCTIONthe frontispiece to thi
Page 26 and 27: SUBJECTIVISM IN ECONOMICS AND THE E
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Page 74 and 75: 4LACHMANN ON THESUBJECTIVISM OF ACT
Page 76 and 77: THE SUBJECTIVISM OF ACTIVE MINDSThe
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Page 94 and 95: SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESthis or
Page 96 and 97: SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESof Gott
Page 98 and 99: SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESIn the
Page 100 and 101: SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESsuffici
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESAccordi
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESto his
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESEconomi
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESanswer
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPES1 B wan
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESconclus
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESOn the
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SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPES——(
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEIntroductionAmong
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEconsequences. If,
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEHahn’s notion of
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEentertain theories
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEwords, is it possi
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEX=X (L*,X*) [1]w=X
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEP=Wa 0+rP(K/X)wher
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEThere is no room i
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGEmodel that Dutt ha
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ENDOGENOUS CHANGE3 The difficulty i
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7RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMAND AUSTRIANEC
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMdecisions under
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMconsidered as
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMnot simply enta
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMperformed by th
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMeconomic theory
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMAustrian resear
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISMoutcomes of the
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RADICAL SUBJECTIVISM——(1990)
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8HIERARCHICALMETAPHORS IN AUSTRIANI
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORScoordination
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSpioneering ef
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSbe understood
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSlegal order.
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSMany of these
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSBanking and t
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORSdemand’, th
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORS(eds) (1993);
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HIERARCHICAL METAPHORS——(1988)
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9LACHMANN’S POLICYACTIVISMAn Aust
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMLachman
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMcapital
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISM‘plan
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMcapital
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMwithdra
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISM…Supp
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMchain o
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMKnowled
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LACHMANN’S POLICY ACTIVISMinvestm
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10EXPECTATIONS ANDSTOCK MARKET PRIC
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EXPECTATIONS AND STOCK MARKET PRICE
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INDEXaction: individual 32-3, 38-9,
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INDEXefficient allocation/co-ordina
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INDEXmarket 119-20; theory of value
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INDEX19; stock market expectations1
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