Economic Science and the Austrian Method_3

Hans-Hermann Hoppeinsight that the relationship between theory and history inthe field of the social sciences is of an entirely differentnature than that in the natural sciences.What is this contradiction? If actions could indeed beconceived of as governed by time-invariantly operatingcauses, then it is certainly appropriate to ask: But what thenabout explaining the explainers? What about causally predictingtheir actions? They are, after all, the persons whocarryon the very process of creating hypotheses and ofverification and falsification.In order to assimilate confirming or falsifying experiences-toreplace old hypotheses with new ones-one mustassumedly be able to learn from experience. Every empiricistis, ofcourse, forced to admit this. Otherwise why engage inempirical research at all?But if one can learn from experience in as yet unknownways, then one admittedly cannot know at any given timewhat one will know at a later time and, accordingl~ howone will act on the basis of this knowledge. One can onlyreconstruct the causes ofone's actions after the event, as onecan explain one's knowledge only after one already possessesit. Indeed, no scientific advance could ever alter the fact thatone must regard one's knowledge and actions as unpredictableon the basis of constantly operating causes. One might holdthis conception of freedom to be an illusion. And one mightwell be correct from the point of view of a scientist withcognitive powers substantially superior to any human intelligence,or from the point of view of God. But we are notGod, and even if our freedom is illusory from His standpointand our actions follow a predictable path, for usthis is a necessary and unavoidable illusion. We cannotpredict in advance, on the basis of our previous states, thefuture states of our knowledge or the actions manifestingThe Ludwig von Mises Institute • 37