The Aristotelian-Thomistic Roots of Austrian School

The Aristotelian-Tomistic Roots of Austrian School

by Daniel Morena Vitten.

Aristotelian-Tomistic Realist Philosophy

may be the strongest foundation for disciplines

such as praxeology.

As David Gordon notes in his book,

the philosophical origins of Austrian economics,

the Austrian school and realist philosophy

seem made for each other.

The Austrian school defends methodological

individualism, a view of individual human action,

that Aristotle had already articulated

in the Nikoma Khan ethics.

In the posterior analytics, Aristotle

also defended the second key feature of the Austrian school,

the deduction of scientific knowledge

from a self-evident axiom.

In this sense, Michelle Akad argues,

we can identify distinctly Aristotelian principles

in the economic thought of the Austrian school.

First is causal realism.

The Austrians, if not explicitly, at least implicitly,

seem to agree with Aristotle that there

is a mind-independent reality.

An extramental world accessible via the senses

and intelligible to the human mind.

For the Austrians, as for Aristotle,

cause and effect relationships are real and discoverable

through the proper use of reason.

Like Aristotle, the Austrians trust

in the general reliability of sense knowledge

and in the conformity of reason to reality.

Because of this, they have been able to elaborate

an economic science in systematic fashion,

starting from first principles.

Second, having no qualms about interpreting human action

as teleological.

The Austrian school has separated itself

from the mainstream of modern philosophy and science

and has been criticized for being a throwback to scholasticism.

It is easy to see why.

Maisus' idea that humans act in order

to satisfy a felt uneasiness brings to mind

the scholastic dictum that every agent acts for an end.

And more generally, Aristotle's notion

that humans are self-perfecting beings,

actualizing their active potencies.

Teleological realism is a critically important Aristotelian

principle and also a foundational concept

in Austrian economics.

The first paragraph addresses the methodological status

of the Austrian school.

Gordon explains that Maisus adopts Kantian terminology.

The propositions of the Austrian school

are synthetic a priori truths, which

means one cannot rule out the possibility

that determinism might one day turn out to be true.

This is arguably an unnecessary concession

by Maisus stemming from his starting point in Kant.

Murray Rothbard rejects Maisus' idea

that action is prior to all experience

because there are laws of logical structure

that the human mind imposes on the chaotic structure

of reality, that is methodological dualism.

Akad argues that for Aristotle, however,

such a methodological separation would

seem unnecessary and counterproductive,

as it uproots man from his greater cosmological context,

a natural world which is also pervaded with teleology

and governed by fundamental principles

that also apply to human action.

Rothbard argues that these laws are laws of reality,

that the mind grasps by investigating

the facts of the real world.

Therefore, both the fundamental axiom and the subsidiary ones

are derived from experience and are empirical,

but not in the post-humane sense.

The axioms of praxeology are radically empirical and self-evident,

and thus they do not require the criterion of falsifiability.

The only evidence they need is that they do not

violate the laws of logic.

Modern empiricism is irrelevant here,

since to prove means to make evidence

what was not evident before, but if a truth is self-evident,

attempting to prove it is pointless.

The second paragraph concerns teleology.

The Austrian school is teleological,

because it understands human action as goal-oriented behavior.

Economics does not study mere mechanical reactions,

but rather the way individuals seek to satisfy their needs.

Karl Manger illustrates this teleology

in his theory of capital.

Higher order goods have no value in themselves,

but only insofar as they contribute

to the production of consumer goods.

Capital is not a mere collection of things,

but an ordered structure shaped by entrepreneurial plans

through which resources are combined

for the purpose of achieving a higher end.

Production, therefore, is a directed process

in which means acquire meaning only in relation

to the end they seek to achieve.

One of the positivist critiques of Austrian economics

is that statements such as an actor always chooses

his most highly valued end are taught illogical.

According to this objection, if most highly valued,

simply means what the actor chooses,

then the statement provides no new knowledge about reality,

and merely restates the same idea in different words.

I can, however, refutes this critique

from a realist perspective.

He points out that the charge of topology

would only hold if the goodness or value of a good

were purely subjective.

That is, if it did not exist in extra mental reality

and depended exclusively on the actor's decision.

Against this view, he argues that value

is not merely subjective, but is grounded

in the things themselves, even though each actor perceives

and ranks them according to his particular situation.

To end with praxeology, therefore,

is not an empty topology,

but a discipline that describes the relationship

between the actor's knowledge and the objective structure

of the world, allowing for the development

of a theoretical system based on deductive principles

without reliance on the positivist statistical method.

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