Is Austrian Economics 'Unscientific'?

Of course not. Each discipline has a method appropriate to its nature. Prof. Jeffrey Herbener explains the method of economics.
http://www.LibertyClassroom.com

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[Matthew Swaringen]

Praxeology does start with observations of reality. Praxeology starts from a simple axiom. Humans act, they employ the use of means to meet ends. It's pretty simple. There is nothing "disconnected from reality" about this.

[humanhiveanomaly]

This was a fine presentation. It seems this offended the zombie hoard of ad hominem.

[Jonathan Clapsaddle]

The "science" referred to in the title is quite an outdated interpretation. I propose rather Popper's view on science, in which the necessary but not sufficient criterion is falsifiability: What, on planet earth, might show Praxeology to be inaccurate? if the answer is nothing (regardless of the reason) - it may be true, but is not scientific (the two are distinguishable).

There's more to it, of course; I recommend reading the introduction and 1st ch. of Popper's "Conjectures & Refutations".

[thelion2430]

Economics was never a science

[danewheeler]

(Cont02) It is almost like saying, Gravity works which is why when you tripped and landed on your knee it now hurts. It is a simple argument that explains the why and then the how. Writing in this manner does not make the premise of Gravity or the result (the hurt knee) any less true. In the same manner, writing in this way does not make his argument invalid.

[danewheeler]

(Cont) So to claim no one start with a claim and works deductive is not exactly true. However, I think you missed the point of Praxeology. It is working with what we obviously know to be true. I.E. humans make decisions. They have orders in which they fulfill their decisions or if they do at all. In other words, they have preferences. Have you read Human Action or the Theory of Money and Credit? The premises are obvious but are used to simply explain the Why.

[danewheeler]

There are different methods people use in reasoning both Inductive and Deductive. For example Comparative Reasoning (this is like that), Ideological Reasoning (top down), Empirical Reasoning (bottom up), and Heuristic methods. The key is to evaluate the argument. Is the argument Truthful (or is the premise reasonable), is it logically strong, are the reasons given relevant, and is it non-circular (the claim is also not the reasoning).

[darkjudgeofd00m]

a priori reasoning is not scientific therefore austrian economics is not scientific

[IxenBlaze]

Good luck using that as well as making statistical studies regarding the law of diminishing marginal utility.....

[Mark Deming]

Since you are the one arguing method you cannot be averse to methodological questions. Whatever must be presupposed as valid in order to make argumentation possible in the first place cannot in turn be argumentatively disputed without thereby falling into a practical self-contradiction. You cannot argue that humans do not act without engaging in performance contradiction. This raises the human action assertion to the human action axiom. Do you hold that humans do not act?

[SlaveryEvolves]

Love the content, Herbener is a great communicator semantically. Regretfully I think I ought to mention that he is not very charismatic or captivating (to say nothing of the validity of anything, obviously). Should you ever redo the LibertyClassroom videos, I strongly suggest people who aren't Tom Woods record themselves talking TO a real person, rather than just a camera. My two cents, but thanks for the video, hope the feedback is of value some day. Cheers.

[Plena Panameña]

thank you for this video, i'm subscribing after i post this comment.