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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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