Economic Science and the Austrian Method_3

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Hans-Hermann Hoppeprecisely Misesians, from all other current economicschools. All the others conceive ofeconomics as an empiricalscience, as a science like physics, which develops hypothesesthat require continual empirical testing. And they all regardas dogmatic and unscientific Mises's view that economictheorems-like the law of marginal utili~ or the law ofreturns, or the time-preference theory of interest and theAustrian business cycle theory-can be given definite proof,such that it can be shown to be plainly contradictory to denytheir validi~The view ofMark Blaug, highly representative ofmainstreammethodological thought, illustrates this almost universalopposition to Austrianism. Blaug says ofMises, "Hiswritings on the foundations of economic science are socranky and idiosyncratic that one can only wonder that theyhave been taken seriously by anyone.,,4Blaug does not provide one argument to substantiate hisoutrage. His chapter on Austrianism simply ends with thatstatement. Could it be that Blaug's and others' rejection ofMises's apriorism may have more to do with the fact thatthe demanding standards of argumentative rigor, whichan apriorist methodology implies, prove too much forthem?54Mark Blaug, The Methodology ofEconomics (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1980), p. 93; for a similar statement of outrage see Paul Samuelson,Collected Scientific Papers, vol. 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,1972), p. 761.5Another prominent critic of praxeology is Terence W Hutchison, TheSignificance and Basic Postulates ofEconomic Theory (London: Macmillan, 1938).Hutchison, like Blaug an adherent of the Popperian variant of empiricism, hassince become much less enthusiastic about the prospects ofadvancing economicsalong empiricist lines (see, for instance, his Knowledge and Ignorance in Economics[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977]; and The Politics and Philosophy ofEconomics [New York: New York University Press, 1981]), yet he still sees noalternative to Popper's falsificationism. A position and development quite similarThe Ludwig von Mises Institute • 9
Economic Science and the Austrian MethodWhat led Mises to his characterization of economics asan a priori science? From the present day perspective itmight be surprising to hear that Mises did not see hisconception as out ofline with the mainstream view prevailingin the early twentieth centur~ Mises did not wish toprescribe what economists should be doing as opposed towhat they actually were doing. Rather, he saw his achievementas a philosopher of economics in systematizing, andin making explicit what economics really was, and how ithad implicitly been conceived by almost everyone callinghimself an economist.And this is indeed the case. In giving a systematicexplanation ofwhat was formerly only implicit and unspokenknowledge, Mises did introduce some conceptual andterminological distinctions that had previously been unclearand unfamiliar, at least to the English-speaking world. Buthis position on the status of economics was essentially infull agreement with the then-orthodox view on the matter.They did not employ the term "a priori," but such mainstreameconomists as Jean Baptiste Sa~ Nassau Senior, andJohn E. Cairnes, for instance, described economics quitesimilarl~Say writes: "A treatise on political economy will ... beconfined to the enunciation of a few general principles, notrequiring even the support ofproofs or illustrations; becauseto Hutchison's is to be found in H. Albert (see his earlier Marktsoziologie undEntscheidungslogik (Neuwied: 1967). For a critique ofthe empiricist position, seeHans-Hermann Hoppe, Kritik der kausalwissenschaftlichen Sozialforschung. Unterschungenzur Grundlegung von Soziologie und Okonomie (Opladen: 1983); "IsResearch Based on Causal Scientific Principles Possible in the Social Sciences?"Ratio 25, no. 1 (1983); "In Defense ofExtreme Rationalism," Review ofAustrianEconomics 3 (1988); "On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundations of Epistemologyand Ethics," in Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., ed., The Meaning ofLudwigvon Mises (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1989).10 • The Ludwig von Mises Institute
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INDEXAlbert, H., 10Andreski, St., 5
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ABOUT THE AUTHORHans..Hermann Hoppe
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