 You know I intended For today, I thought I would I intended to copyright my lecture, but after listening to Stefan's talk, I decided not to do it Now what I want to talk about today is I'm going to discuss a bit about what the Called the I called the everyday logic of an economics and then give some examples of how this Everyday logic functions Let me see. I have this is very high tech. So I'm not sure I'll be able to work this properly. Oh, good Let's see. What did I say here? now if you look at Compare Austrian economics is you find it in the works of Mises and Rothbard Say with mainstream economics that you find in Journal articles if you look in American economic review, you'll notice or what you would learn in most mainstream universities You'll notice a very marked difference not only in the content of what's taught but in the manner of Presentation if you look at Mises and Rothbard Austrian economics the But the works are written in ordinary language and the reasoning is conducted Informally it isn't set up in you don't have a lot of use of mathematics or formal Axioms with derivations and this is not just the reverse in mainstream economics in mainstream economics You have all sorts of math mathematical equations. You'll have axioms and then various There'll be deductions from these axioms They're carried on formally and then these will be tested if you so then of course in Econometrics you have pages of statistics so you can tell if it's Mainstream text it'll look like a Railway timetable as opposed to Austrian economics. That was a joke. You were supposed to laugh I I have to deal with the material I come up with You know So what I want to do is we can draw a kind of a Parallel here with the situation in philosophy in the 20th century at the beginning of the 20th century Bertrand Russell and other philosophers thought that a problem with Philosophy was that people kept Disagreeing and the reason or a reason they disagreed was that they used in exact language so Russell and others such as the logical positivist thought that if we replace ordinary language with exact terms that are very Exactly defined you could get a scientific language and then we'd be able to solve all the Philosophical problems or show that these problems were pseudo problems not real problems We could just by getting everything into an exact language. We could replace all the ambiguities Vaguenesses of ordinary language led to confusion So after this movement had been around for a while there was a reaction against this called ordinary language philosophy people such as J.L. Austin in England Gilbert Ryle and Were partisans of ordinary language philosophy later Wittgenstein was also Aligned with them to some extent although he's not a standard ordinary language philosopher, but he also Spoke and wrote in ordinary language. So the people in this Movement and here there's rather parallel with the With the Austrian economists said ordinary language is perfectly all right and we can reason in that way We don't this idea that there's something wrong with our ordinary language has to be replaced by a scientific language isn't Correct that ordinary language makes certain distinctions and they're very important that aren't really Replaceable so I think we can see the Austrian economics is rather parallel to that the Austrian economics is reasoning in an ordinary way Now How does the Austrian Austrian economics work? Well this you'll already be familiar with with from some of the earlier Lectures in your reading What we do in Austrian economics is Start with a true premise and reason Deductively from that and again, this is all done in ordinary language Say we start with the preface the premise that human beings at and then we try to deduce things from that Either we're reducing consequences from that or we're trying to Make explicit what's involved in the concept just by thinking about the concept of action We're trying to figure out what's involved in this concept and then this is done in it just by not by any Formal process where we set out Symbols sort of have an axiom system that set out Symbolically and then we follow certain formal rules We're just thinking about what's involved in the concept of action and what follows from it Now the question would we could ask is well, why should we do it this way? Why should we start? Reason in this informal way starting with a true premise and reasoning deductively from it well, of course the reason to do that is if we start with a true premise and Then reason validly that means reason in accord with the rules of logic then it's guaranteed that What the conclusion will also be true? supposing to take the Familiar example we say we have we start with a premise all men are mortal and we have Socrates as a man We conclude Socrates is mortal So if the two premises are true then it's guaranteed that Socrates is mortal It follows deductively from the premises that Socrates is mortal. So Premises are true then the conclusion is also true now what happens if the premises aren't true what happens supposed we have a Premises that aren't true and we reason validly from those what would happen then And anybody Does anybody have an answer to that? Yes pardon Well, it wouldn't have to be I mean remember I'm specifying that the reasoning is valid So it isn't committing a fallacy. We're just starting with wrong premise Yeah, yes, that's right It it isn't guaranteed that the statement is false all that we have is all that we know is if you start with true Premises and then you reason validly from them then your conclusion is True, but if the premises aren't true then we don't know whether the conclusion is true that would just depend on the individual case and it's also The case if we start with true premises and we reason Invalidly then we don't know whether the conclusion is true. So you could have cases say we're let's take this case suppose we have a all men are immortal Socrates is not a man Therefore Socrates is mortal. So we have here. We have two premises or both false We had all men are immortal and Socrates is not a man and we've reasoned Invalidly it doesn't follow from all men are immortal and Socrates is not a man that Socrates is mortal You can see why that's invalid because we didn't say only Men are immortal. We just said all men are immortal and I said then the next one was Socrates is not a man. So it doesn't follow from that that Socrates is mortal, but nevertheless, it's true Socrates so we have here. It's a case of Reasoned Invalidly from false premises, but we've come up with a true conclusion. So again What the thing to remember is if you start with a true premise in reasoned Invalidly, then you'll get a true conclusion And another thing we know is that if you reasoned Invalidly and you have a false Conclusion then one of at least one of the premises is false So this is the basic way the basic thing to remember in deductive reasoning and this is the way the Austrian economics proceeds so if Say again, we're Reasoned Invalidly, you know, the conclusion is true. So supposing say we're thinking about action and we think It's inheriting the concept of action that an actor will choose his most highly valued preference Say we think this is part of the concept of action Person will have various choices and he'll rank these and then he's going to choose the one he values Most highly so if we were correct that this is part of the concept of action Then we don't have to keep testing. We don't have to keep Trying out. Well, let's do a survey. Do people always choose their most highly Valued action. We know it's true. So we don't need to test it. I mean if we wanted to engage in Experimental philosophy if there is such a thing we could try to do that But there'd be no no it would be no point to it because it's once we it follows from the true premise then That's all we need so Now as I mentioned it's essential in doing this kind of Reason that we start with a true premise because if we don't start with a true premise remember It's not even if we reason validly the premise isn't true then We we aren't guaranteed the conclusions will be true. So we have to start with the true premise, but We're fortunate in Austrian economics. We do know the premise the action acts in human beings act is true this is something that We just think about we see that it we can grasp immediately. It's true. It's self Evident now. What do we mean when we say that something is self evident? It means that we can directly grasp it's true and Our reason for thinking it's true doesn't depend on something else We could come up with the Examples where we think something is true But we think it's true because it follows from say some argument that we believe this is a conclusion some are So if we say something is self-evident means that we just directly grasp it to be true and it are Seeing it's true isn't dependent on anything else Now some people think well the self-evident proposition is One where I just when I see it. I have some feeling. I have some kind of mental feeling I I see this is true and the reason it's True is that because I just have this feeling of certainty about it. I just say well, of course All human beings act. I just have this feeling it's certain So that's why I believe it's true But you see if that were why you believe this statement is true that it wouldn't be self-evident You say suppose you said well, I have this feeling of certainty I'm certain I have this feeling so therefore I believe this statement is true now Can anyone tell me why wouldn't it be self-evident if that were why I believe that I have I say Well, I just looking at that. I feel I have this feeling it's certain so I therefore I believe yet Well I'm not sure that's true. I mean supposing Supposing I were to start the Ranting and raving assuming I'm not I when I say start. I suppose I'm begging. I'm making an assumption that but I Mean I suppose you why couldn't you say that you could see that I'm angry Ranting and raving and also supposing you were correct that no one could observe how I Feel how would it follow? What would that have to do with? Why it would be wrong? What would be wrong with saying it was self-evident to me that might be a reason for thinking other people Couldn't know whether I think it's self-evident, but why would that be a reason for thinking that it's not self-evident? Anybody else Yes Well, I Are you though? I mean the statement this is self-evident and I have a feeling Seems to me that this is self-evident Don't seem to me at all the same assertion Yes, you want another try? Yes. Yes, that's it exactly good. I'm glad go to the head of the class. Yes, that's excellent. Yes, you see This is exactly right. You see if I said I was basing this feeling this my Belief in the statement on some feeling of certainty then it would be based on those feelings it wouldn't be Not it wouldn't be the case It wasn't based on anything would be based on that feeling this point was made by the great British philosopher Jean Moore. It's a very important point this often miss when you say something is self-evident. You're not saying that it's Something that you have you believe because you have some feeling of certainty about it. You directly grasp it Now I want to raise an objection to what I've been saying so far is I said that Austrian economics uses ordinary or common-sense Reasoning it's not it doesn't involve any appeal to formal systems or or Controversial concepts, but one could say well is that really the case after all don't Mises and other Austrian speak about Synthetic a priori propositions or actually Mises doesn't really say synthetic opry he's talked at least talked about a priori propositions Remembering Hans Hoppe's lectures. He was discussing synthetic a priori Truth and giving arguments against the logical positivists now. I think these arguments Against logical positivists are very good ones. I'm going to be discussing logical positivists on Friday if I live that long Maybe I'll be discussing them even if I don't never know So might say well, even if these are good arguments against these On these topics, they're certainly not common sense points You have to learn a lot about Philosophy and able to be in order to understand what's going on and with all this talk about the a priori or Nate necessary proposition. So how could we say that this is Austrian economics is a Matter of common sense reasoning. Well, I think the thing to bear in mind here is that These philosophical theories are Defenses of Austrian economics against people who criticized it. They're not in Intrinsic parts of the theory. It's just that the logical positivists and others raised questions. They said well, you're making certain claims about how Economists know things and these claims violate certain philosophical principles What Mises and other people did when they talked about a priori knowledge was try to come up with a Defense against the positivist, but you don't have to You don't have to Accept that I think you should accept it You don't have to in order to engage in Austrian economics. All you have to do is accept that the action axiom and the other Starting points like the assumption that labor has disutility are true Once, you know, they're true again when you reason from them in a valid way then what follows is true So you don't you don't need to worry at least if you want to do Austrian economics rather than methodology whether the propositions or a priori or what the nature of analytic proposition is these are Just philosophical points of great interest to philosophers But this isn't really part of the actual economic theory now one Thing I think it's very important to realize here It's a mistake that sometimes made is if we if we say well the prop Say we say the statement the statement is true, but People say well what if it's an empirical claim then people think well it unless it's a priori Then if it's just a statement of empirical statement, then we can't be sure about it It's always something that'll be just a hypothesis and subject to test So you don't really know something unless we can say it's a priori And so if this was right, then I would be wronged in saying that we don't have to bring in All this material about the a priori in order to understand in order to do Austrian Economics is it wouldn't just be a side philosophical If it wouldn't be just a philosophical defense we would really have to Know this stuff because otherwise we couldn't be certain about it But the it's very important to bear in mind that many Empirical statements many states about the world are Certain they're not something that we have to keep testing to find out whether they're true I'm taking another example again. This is one from G more exposed. I say The earth has existed for a long time Before I was born. I'm not that old So I think I can say I'm certain about that It's not something that we're going to find out. Well, the geophysicists have miscalculated actually the The earth came into existence only a few years before I was born. That's not going to happen so But we shouldn't think if we have just a straightforward empirical statement that it's Doubtful or subject to continue test that would be a basic fallacy. So that's why I say We don't we can still say Austrian economics involves just common-sense reasoning because it's not a good Objection to say well, but it has to have this it makes all these claims about a priori knowledge Which it doesn't involve common sense because we don't have to Say that it's a priori. I think they're good arguments that it is But we don't have to say that in order to engage in Austrian economics and know that the Austrian propositions are correct and true Now I want to deal with another Objection here, which I think is one that's philosophically interesting You might not think so but I do and I'm the one who's giving the talk That's what counts So now it sometimes happens if we look at history of science That Believes that people take to be obviously true Turn out not to be true for example It doesn't seem to us now that we don't feel that the earth is moving at least if Well, I felt that way, but it's sometimes it's usually just before I pass out, but Usually we don't feel that way we don't feel that way But we nevertheless have good reason to believe that the earth is moving at a very rapid rate Speed so the argument sometimes we've been given is well Science very often sometimes overthrows our common-sense beliefs. So even if we think That certain common-sense beliefs about economics or true say Maybe this isn't the proper way to do science because what if science shows that Human beings don't act. How do we know that future science won't Show that this is just one of those beliefs we had that turned out to be wrong Well here, I think Basic fallacy in this sort of argument is that If we've sometimes been wronged about things we take to be obviously true That would just show we have to be very careful when we make The claim that something is obviously true, but if we really Look over the claim carefully Think it is true then we don't have a good reason to doubt it just from the fact that We've made mistakes in the past doesn't show that For every claim we make now that claim is possibly wrong That wouldn't follow at all you see the difference there claim would be someone said well I've made claims that have turned out to be wrong in the past Therefore what I'm saying now is possibly wrong even though Seems certain to me that doesn't follow at all that that's it that type of argument instantly is one that is I think a basic problem with certain arguments for philosophical skepticism they would Think that while we've made certain mistake we can made certain mistakes. So Therefore possibly everything We believe is a mistake for you think just to give an example It's a bit of a digression. I don't think that much of a digression. Well, that could be a mistake too Suppose somebody said well sometimes people are Uncertain whether they're dreaming or awake sometimes you have a very vivid dream And you're not sure is this really happening or am I dreaming? But it doesn't follow from that that for all I know I might always be dreaming it might always be unable to Distinguish them just from the fact that in some cases I couldn't so this is a not a correct way of reasoning Now now that we've gone over some of the basic points about how Austrian economics reason does in this ordinary or common-sense way. I want to give some applications of how You could reason in this common-sense way about Economic issues. I'm going to be especially concerned with normative economics how we make certain Claims about what the best economic system is or what should or shouldn't be done their relation to descriptive statements about economics now you'll sometimes Hear people arguing this way. Maybe you've had discussions like this people will say things like well Austrians don't they're very skeptical about The benefits of state intervention that we can see there are some countries that do very well under a system of state intervention for example In China they have a very high growth rate, but even though they've Freed up the economy very substantially from the days when they had the Full-fledged socialist system under the Maoist It's still the case that a lot of industry is owned by the state. It's certainly not a free market utopia But nevertheless, they have an extremely high growth rate. So how can it be? How can you say that? Economic intervention always has bad effects because look how well China is doing or another example Paul Krugman The Nobel Prize-winning economist has made this claim. He said people say that very Progressive taxation Interfers with productivity. It's bad for the economy progressive taxes. No doubt. No is one where People with higher income will pay not only more tax, but a higher rate of tax They'll have a higher percentage of their tax their income taken in taxes. So Krugman and other people said well, look if you take the United States in the 1950s There was a very high growth rate, but taxes were more progressive than they are now so Doesn't this show that? The economy can run very well It with it's not the case that progressive taxation harms the economy because look how well the economy was doing Even when we had progressive taxation so what's wrong with this way of reasoning is that it isn't When they make these claims say that the state State intervention does is very good for the economy or economy Progressive taxation doesn't harm the economy these statements aren't put Built up from a particular theory. They're just claims where they're They're Assertions that there's kind of a correlation of say well look the economy Chinese economy is doing very well. It's growing very rapidly, but They at the same time they have a lot of state intervention. So it can't be the case that the State intervention is bad for the economy. So You see this doesn't follow at all because all that we have here is a correlation between State intervention and high growth rate that doesn't show there's a causal relationship between the two It could be that Say if you say that the Chinese economy would be doing even better than it is now if they didn't have Extensive state intervention that isn't ruled out by the fact that they're They're doing well when they do have state intervention You see that we just if you argue in this way, you're just giving certain correlations between things you aren't Showing there's a genuine causal relationship Now to do to show there's a genuine causal relationship We would have to build We would have to build up a theory just in the way we do in Austrian economics from first principles We would be showing how the we would be able to have a theory saying why certain policies would lead to prosperity and why certain Policies wouldn't so if we have to have a coherent theory to do this it isn't enough just to Point out certain correlations another example where people have done this People say well the United States Say in the late 19th and 20th century had a very high growth rate, but they also had high tariffs for Long periods of time, so it must be the case that high tariffs don't Hurt the economy in fact or an aid to economic growth. You see we have the same sort of mistake here We're just saying there's Correlation here. We haven't built up any theory showing how tariffs are beneficial so now if we follow the correct course of Building up a theory then suppose what we want to do is find out Weathers the economic effects of certain kinds of policies Well, one thing that's extremely important to do This is one point that Mises stressed very much is that we have to take account all the effects of the measure We're considering not just some of the effects. We have to consider all the effects of it So and we're not we don't give priority say just to the immediate effects, but we want to consider all the effect Now some people have attacked Econ the economists such as Mises who say this they say well this shows that Mises Other Austrians are just concerned with the long run, but what about the short run? Why shouldn't we prefer the short run to the long run in a famous article? Canes Lord Cain's who was not too well thought of in this in this Institute Made the statement in the long run. We're all dead So he he was there Making fun of those who emphasize the long run So why why even if something has bad long-term effects? Why shouldn't we follow that policy? Why why should the fact why shouldn't we concentrate on the short run? For example, you Hear people today saying well, we're in a recession. So we need the government needs to spend a lot of money. This might Raise the debt, but that's something to worry about in the future. What's important is what we need to do now We we should why not emphasize the short run rather long run So Mises points pointed out that he wasn't saying we should always prefer the long run to the short run But simply that we should be aware of all the consequences both short run and long run. So we don't We could then decide what to do on the basis of the fullest information we can come up with Rather than just it isn't a matter of saying we always have to prefer the long run Now I want to give an example of how this method analysis where we take into account all the effects of a measure At least all the ones we can think of Works in practice now you'll sometimes hear arguments for protected tariffs along these lines people will say Supposing we have an industry. Let's say certain car manufacturing and their Foreign cars can undersell the cars that we have so then unless we protect the car this car industry then The workers in those in this car industry will lose their jobs And this will be very bad for them and very bad for the economy Because all those people will be out of work and then they won't be spending their money on At least as much money as they had before on things they would buy So this will lead to a cycle where people will just stop spending and it'll have general bad effects So we need a tariff so this won't happen now Of course what this is overlooking is that if the Foreign firm was selling the cars at a lower price and the American firm was able to To do then the consumers are benefiting from the lower prices Then they have more money to spend on other things. So there's no net loss of There's no net loss in production at all on the contrary people are able to have more resources available to spend on other things and also Supposing then when Say the foreign firm makes money and they get American money for Selling the cars then they will then spend the money for American products that they are exported to their country so The producers of these export industries benefit from that So here you see it's quite different if we take account just the the immediate Consequences that these workers in the car industry are out of a job and we take out all the Consequences while this is helping the consumers There'll be an increase in employment in Industries or products that the consumers spend their money on and the foreign people will be spending Money they receive on American at least in part on American products now it doesn't follow from what I've said Oh, I gave this one already Okay, now it doesn't follow from what I've said that Economics include it's wrong to impose the tariff that would be a value judgment Might be a very reasonable one to make but that wouldn't follow from the Economic analysis what the economic analysis is is just telling you what the effects of the tariff or it doesn't tell you What you should do it just stating what the effects are now When you decide what to do that is Ethical judgment on your parts of judgment about what you should do now here again It's important to avoid a mistake. It doesn't follow from what I've said that it's when I said that when you Give the effects of a tariff it doesn't is that's just a descriptive saying doesn't tell you what you To do it doesn't follow from that that there are no Objective criteria for what's right and wrong in ethics It doesn't follow that all ethical judgments are just subjective expressions of preference There could very well be up. It could very well be objectively true Judgments about ethics that would tell you Not to impose a tariff I suspect there are but all I was claiming is that this isn't part of economics Economics is a descriptive science in it whether there is an objective ethics or not is not something that is Involved in economics economics doesn't make any judgments about that issue and also just to refine the point a little further It doesn't follow from what I've said that Judgments about ethics Don't are not Consequences of descriptive statements about the world that could be true, too. It's just that's not part of economics So it could be that there is some correct theory of ethics in which it would follow Just from the descriptions of the bad effects of tariffs that you ought not to impose them That isn't ruled out either, but it's that again that isn't part of economics Now I'll give another example of where we can use Austrian economics a conclusion We've helped in analyzing particular argument some people including a Certain American president who I won't mention by name, but we've got him now Have argued in this way they say well it would be a good idea to impose taxes on the very wealthy because The very wealthy aren't going to miss the money very much if you have say a Hundred million dollars say losing a hundred thousand dollars isn't going to couple hundred thousand dollars isn't going to matter very much because Say if we know from law of diminishing marginal utility, you'll put when you get Valuable good including money you put the first unit to your most highly valued use Next unit second most highly value use and so on so when you get down to the Last hundred thousand dollars for somebody who has hundreds and millions It isn't going to be to a very value use at all So he isn't going to miss it very much. So you might as well take it So you you hear arguments like this with increasing frequency these days so in Austrian economics, we don't have a concept of utility in which this kind of Reasoning would make sense because in Austrian economics remember utility Simply means your preference ranking for something. So when I have certain alternatives Open to me. I just rank these alternative actions in Order that I want them. I have a choice between doing various action So I rank say this is the one I most prefer to do this one. I next most prefer and so on then if I have Good such as money available as I just mentioned I would allocate the first unit to my most highly valued use second unit to my next most highly Value use and so on but I wouldn't I'm not making any judgment about how much I value one Over the other I'm not say well the top one really gives me an enormous amount of satisfaction This last one really doesn't matter at all. I'm not making any assessment of Psychological satisfactions in trying to figure out this Utility of these I just have a preference scale and then again What if once I get the preference scale? I couldn't compare this with somebody else's I could just compare them in the sense I could see what is on the other person's preference scale, but I couldn't say my first preference ranks Higher or lower than this other person's Second preference because all you have all you're given with this Concept the Austrian concept of utility is a preference scale for each person and it doesn't make sense in Austrian terms to say One person gets greater utility from money than someone else So I see you couldn't make this argument about diminishing marginal utility in taxes that I've just given I should say sometimes you'll get a bad what I consider any rate bad or at least dubious arguments for the Austrian view for example people say well you can't measure an Intensive magnitude their intensive manager would be something Psychological, but I don't think this is right. I mean why can't you measure an intensive magnitude? Say you go into a hospital and they At they ask you to say how much pain you're in you know have a scale of One to ten. I'm always I always say it's ten then they give you more attention, but I I mean, I don't see anything intrinsically Absurd about that so I mean the point to bear in mind is we're not talking about a psychological magnitude at all We just have a pure ranking of different choices so the notion of magnitude Doesn't come into it. So that's why you can't use this concept of utility So again if we say this We're not making an ethical judgment. It says well, you shouldn't Have taxes on the very rich because That you shouldn't have taxes on the very rich you might have Reasons to tax and it's just you can't say That the reason to have taxes on the rich is that they get less utility from their money Than poor people do if you're using the Austrian concept of utility You might be able to make such a claim if you use some sort of different concept of utility on the Austrian Inception of utility you couldn't make such a statement. So this is an example of how we can use Austrian theory to help us analyze particular policy proposals Now so far I've made a Short distinction between ethics and economics. I've been saying well Economics makes descriptive statements and we have to be very careful to distinguish ethical Ethical state-by-state about what we ought or ought not to do from the descriptive states of economics now one of Mises very valuable contributions was he certainly believed in this very sharp separation between ethics and economics Nevertheless, he thought that the economist can sometimes make statements about that are very that are have Ethical significance in deciding what to do. So even though economics is a purely descriptive Science you can nevertheless make certain judgments about policies that don't involve Value judgments on your part. How could you do that? Well? Mises said you can show that in certain cases you can ask Will a particular Policy achieve the ends that the people propose the policy Want for it? So if you could show that a measure would be Unsuccessful then you would have a good reason not to do that. You wouldn't be making an ethical judgment you'd be saying even on Your own grounds you shouldn't favor this measure because you won't get what you want from it So here it would just be an appeal to general principle Rationality you ought to do it would be it's rational for you to do what will achieve your ends Not won't won't achieve them. You wouldn't be making a controversial value judgment He would Mises would say you wouldn't be making a value judgment at all Now an example this is what one that means is gives is Suppose the government thinks that the price of milk is too high say Their poor people can't afford milk They need the milk to give it to their babies, but they can't afford it So this is a very bad thing. So the government proposes well They'll Have price controls on milk. So then people Won't then the poor people will be able to have more milk available. So You might think well You might say this isn't a good idea because this interferes with the rights of the Milk producers to set prices In whatever way they want, but this would be an ethical judgment This would be involved some judging about what people's rights would be but can the economist say anything About the price control that doesn't make any appeal to any ethical theory Even if it's a correct ethical theory and Mises said yes the economist could because he could say Well, the effect of the price control will be that milk producers won't make as much milk available because At least it might be that because at a if the price is lower it will be lower than In the mount they want to say at it's that the Let me put this where this better at the price the government is set the If it's below the market price, then the milk producers will Not supply as much milk as they would have done at the market price so the result of the government measure will be to Lower the amount of milk available But just what they wanted was to increase the amount of milk available not to lower it So this is an example where the price control would lead to a result That was contrary to what the people who wanted the price control Favorites so Mises said just if we stick within the terms of descriptive Economics we can have a reason to oppose the price control Rather than accept it because from the point of view of the people who advocated it isn't going to succeed So I think we're we have a few minutes left if there are any questions Objections, maybe people have better jokes than I did Yes The that was a very good question the question was how do we know that the logical framework will always yield valid conclusions? Well, we're just following standard logic, you know, I mean that's Not too controversial. I mean, it's been around for a long time. It's Do you think that it might are you suggesting might turn out to be the might turn out that the ordinary rules of logic are wrong or do you think it's just an empirical hypothesis or oh Well, I mean, it's just well again, we would just think about them and we grasp that they are true It's a similar process. You either just See that these rules are the basic rules are correct They're evident to us and then we can go on We can go on from there. I mean, it's it isn't that there are some Super science of logic that shows that logic is correct This is what we take to be the starting point and we directly grasp at least certain principles of truth or true Now there are there are some logicians, especially Modern logicians who think they're so-called alternative logics that don't reject certain standard Logical laws for example, there's logics that Don't accept the principle of excluded middle or some people who reject the law of non-contradiction, but I don't think that those Those views it really There was a user really hard to follow the Why they think that at one point Saul Kripke was one Leading my philosophers point out that if you're going to state the rules of these alternative logics You have so-called attorney of logic. You have to do those in terms of the standard logic. So It's kind of their Statuses rather questionable. So I think basically Again, we're just using Ordinary reasoning and logic if that turned out to be wrong We'd really be in a lot of trouble because that's what we use in our ordinary life We would really have had it if ordinary logic turns out to be wrong Yeah, well it inductive reasoning isn't used in the formulating the Praxeology in the theory you could certainly use inductive reasoning in historical matters or in Giving particular examples I'm in my lecture this afternoon on Where I talk about History, I'll be giving something about inductive reasoning. So I'll deal with that a bit in that lecture Yes Well, you see again if such a thing were to happen Assuming that's possible that would have no effect at all on the concept of utility is Austrian Economists using because that would simply be remember. It's simply a ranking of Choices it isn't a ranking based on your estimate of some kind of psychological Satisfaction that you have in them. So it isn't something like well, I'm going to choose the one The alternative available that gives me kind of a certain thrill and I'll measure this Compared to the thrill I get from other things. See if I would do it by thrills I obviously wouldn't be giving this lecture right now what I but You even more certainly you wouldn't be here Listening to me, but again, it isn't some sort of psychological measures is some measure of psychological Satisfaction, it's a pure preference ranking So if you if you were to come up some some way of measuring the satisfaction that wouldn't affect The Austrian view of utility at all. It's a different concept altogether Yeah, ah Well, it's interesting you see when Jefferson said remember he says we hold these truths That seems to be saying well, we're going to take these to be basic even though they might not be you know He said well if something self-evident you don't hold it to be self-evident it is or it isn't so I think there if you thought that those Statements decoration for independence really were self-evident and it would be quite the same as Austrian you would just be something you're directly grasping to be true But it's not clear that Jefferson himself wanted to be taken that way But if he did that would be what he was saying the self-evident doesn't refer to the content of what you claim to be self It's just how you claim to know it