Economic Science and the Austrian Method_3

Economic Science and the Austrian Methodthese norms and normative implications cannot be falsifiedby the result ofany empirical measurement. On the contrar~their cognitive validity is substantiated by the fact that it isthey which make physical measurements in space possible.Any actual measurement must already presuppose the validityofthe norms leading to the construction ofone's measurementstandards. Itis in this sense thatgeometry is an a priori science;and that itmust simultaneously be regarded as an empiricallymeaningful discipline, because it is not only the very preconditionfor any empirical spatial description, it is also theprecondition for any active orientation in space. 62In view ofthe recognition ofthe praxeological characterof knowledge, these insights regarding the nature of logic,arithmetic and geometry become integrated and embeddedinto a system of epistemological dualism. 63 The ultimate620n the aprioristic character ofEuclidean geometry see Lorenzen,MethodischesDenken, chapters 8 and 9; idem, Normatipe Logic and Ethics, chapter 5; H.Dingler, Die Grundlagen der Geometrie (Stuttgart: Enke, 1933); on Euclideangeometry as a necessary presupposition of objective, i.e., intersubjectively communicable,measurements and in particular of any empirical verification of non­Euclidean geometries (after all, the lenses of the telescopes which one uses toconfirm Einstein's theory regarding the non-Euclidean structure ofphysical spacemust themselves be constructed according to Euclidean principles) see Kambartel,Erfahrung und Struktur, pp. 132-33; ~ Janich, Die Protophysik der Zeit(Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1969), pp. 45-50; idem, "Eindeutigkeit,Konsistenz und methodische Ordnung," in E Kambartel and J. Mittelstrass, eds.,Zum normatipen Fundament der Wissenschaft.Following the lead ofHugo Dingler, Paul Lorenzen and other members ofthe so-called Erlangen school have worked out a system of protophysics, whichcontains all aprioristic presuppositions ofempirical physics, including, apart fromgeometry, also chronometry and hylometry (i.e., classical mechanics withoutgravitation, or "rational" mechanics). "Geometry, chronometry and hylometry area-priori theories which make empirical measurements ofspace, time and materia'possible'. They have to be established before physics in the modern sense of anempirical science, with hypothetical fields offorces, can begin. Therefore, I shouldlike to call these disciplines by a common name: protophysics." Lorenzen, NormatiTJeLogic and Ethics, p. 60.630n the fundamental nature of epistemological dualism see also Mises,Theory and History, pp. 1-2.76 • The Ludwig von Mises Institute