Economic Science and the Austrian Method_3

Hans-Hermann HoppeBut Mises by no means merely notices this rather obviousdifference between economics and the empirical sciences.He makes us understand the nature ofthis differenceand explains how and why a unique discipline like economics,which teaches something about reality without requiringobservations, can possibly exist. It is this achievementof Mises's which can hardly be overrated.In order to better understand his explanation, we mustmake an excursion into the field of philosophy; or moreprecisely into the field of the philosophy of knowledge orepistemolog~In particular, we must examine the epistemologyofImmanuel Kant as developed most completely in hisCritique ofPure Reason. Mises's idea ofpraxeology is clearlyinfluenced by Kant. This is not to say that Mises is a plainand simple Kantian. As a matter of fact, as I will point outlater, Mises carries the Kantian epistemology beyond thepoint at which Kant himself left off. Mises improves theKantian philosophy in a way that to this very day has beencompletely ignored and unappreciated by orthodox Kantianphilosophers. Nonetheless, Mises takes from Kant his centralconceptual and terminological distinctions as well assome fundamental Kantian insights into the nature of humanknowledge. Thus we must turn to Kant.Kant, in the course ofhis critique ofclassical empiricism,in particular that of David Hume, developed the idea thatall our propositions can be classified in a two-fold way: Onthe one hand they are either analytic or synthetic, and onthe other they are either a priori or a posteriori. The meaningof these distinctions is, in short, the following. Propositionsare analytic whenever the means of formal logic aresufficient in order to find out whether they are true or not;otherwise propositions are synthetic ones. And propositionsare a posteriori whenever observations are necessary in orderThe Ludwig von Mises Institute • 17