Economic Science and the Austrian Method_3

Economic Science and the Austrian Methodas logically incommensurable events. Only because the existenceoftime-invariantly operating causes as such is alreadyassumed can one ever encounter particular instances of confirmingor disconfirming observational evidence, or can thereever be an actor who can learn anything from past experienceby classifying his actions as successful and confirming someprevious knowledge, or unsuccessful and disconfirming it.It is simply by virtue of acting and distinguishing betweensuccesses and failures that the a priori validity ofthe principIeof causality is established; even if one tried, one couldnot successfully refute its validi~64In so understanding causality as a necessary presuppositionof action, it is also immediately implied that its rangeof applicability must then be delineated a priori from thatof the category of teleolog)T. Indeed, both categories arestrictly exclusive and complementar)T. Action presupposes acausally structured observational reali~ but the reality ofaction which we can understand as requiring such structure,is not itself causally structured. Instead, it is a reality thatmust be categorized teleologicall~ as purpose-directed,meaningful behavior. In fact, one can neither deny nor undo640n the aprioristic character of the category of causality see Mises, HumanAction, chapter 1; Hoppe, Kritik der kausalwissenschaftlichen Sozialforschung;idem, "Is Research Based on Causal Scientic Principles Possible in the SocialSciences?"; on the causality principle as a necessary presupposition in particularalso of the indeterminacy principle of quantum physics and the fundamentalmisconception involved in interpreting the Heisenberg-principle as invalidatingthe causality principle see Kambartel, Erfahrung und StruktuJ; pp. 138-40; alsoHoppe, "In Defense ofExtreme Rationalism," footnote 36. In fact, it is preciselythe indisputable praxeological fact that separate measurement acts can only beperformed sequentially which explains the very possibility of irreducibly probabilistic-ratherthan deterministic-predictions as they are characteristic of quantumphysics; and yet, in order to perform any experiments in the field ofquantummechanics, a.nd in particular to repeat two or more experiments and state this tobe the case, the validity of the causality principle must evidently already bepresupposed.78 • The Ludwig von Mises Institute