 Hello everybody, I think we'll get started now. This lecture will be, for those of you who were unfortunate enough to go to my previous lectures, this lecture will be something of a review, although we'll cover some new material as well. Some of the ideas that I discussed so far, especially in my first lecture, are rather difficult, so I think it's a good idea to go over them again. I'll be trying to add some new stuff. If you'll allow me just one story about repeating material. My greatest teacher when I was at UCLA was Walter Starkey, who had been professor at Trinity College Dublin in the 1920s. He knew practically everyone's significant. So once after one of his, when he started one of his lectures, the student put up his hand and he said, you're giving the same lecture as last time. And Dr. Starkey said, it's not exactly the same. And the student made the mistake of saying, yes, it's exactly the same. And Dr. Starkey said to him, that's the trouble with you Americans. You never want to hear the same thing twice. So I'm afraid we are going to be hearing, some of you will be hearing the same thing twice in this lecture. Now I want to deal first with the contrast between praxeology and history, where praxeology is a general science of human action. And praxeology, we're considering what is true of all actions, what is true of action as such. So we have the concept of action and we're trying to determine various laws of human action. But history isn't like that. History consists of particular events. So the question might come up, why can't we have laws of history? They might not be praxeological laws. We can't just think about history and come up with laws that just by thinking about laws saying what particular events have happened or are going to happen. But why couldn't we have inductive laws of history similar to those in the physical sciences? And Mises gives us a reason why in his view we can't have such laws is that the way in which in the physical sciences we can arrive at laws is through controlled experiments. In a controlled experiment, the experimenter can hold all the relevant variables constant and then just vary one or a few to see what will happen. But we can't do that when we're studying history. We can't say replay the origin of the US Civil War and say what would have happened if say imagine the situation where Lincoln doesn't reinforce the Fort Sumter in 1861. We can't do a controlled experiment and see what would happen then. We're just not able to perform such experiments so we're unable to come up with historical laws. So this limits the use of generalizations in history. Now in praxeology as I say it's a formal discipline so what we're doing in praxeology is asking what are the essential characteristics of action? Now in the in order to according to the way Mises views this matter which is somewhat different from Murray Rothbard, Mises says in order to understand human experience we need the concept of action. Say we didn't have the concept of action, we could see physical motions of various kinds, we could see say people's arms moving or legs moving, we could see various physical motions but we wouldn't understand what was going on unless we had the concept of action. Now if Mises is right about that he says we couldn't understand human experience without the concept of action then we need, if he's right we need the concept of action in order to understand human experience then we don't get the concept of action from human experience and can you see why that is the argument is if we need the concept in order to understand human experience then we can't get it from human experience because in order to make sense of human experience we have to have a concept already so we can't derive it from human experience. This is those of you who study philosophy, this is a Kantian view similar to that but Immanuel Kant had on certain concepts that we have to have these concepts in order to make sense of experience so Mises is saying we have to have this concept of action if we're going to make sense of human experience therefore it's not derived from human experience and this is what he calls an a priori concept. Now as I mentioned in the first section we'll be getting more of this further on we have to be very careful to distinguish a priori concept from a priori judgment a concept is just an idea that we have of something concepts or ideas so an a priori concept would be one that you need to make in order to make sense of experience. Now one very crucial point to take note of is many people can get this wrong for example there's a very good book by generally very good book by Barry Smith called on Austrian philosophy where he deals with Austrian economics extensively I recommended the I recommend the book in fact it I gave the book a favorable review when it came out and you'll for those of you who know my book reviews that doesn't happen very often I mean I feel book reviews if you can't say something bad about a book why say it at all but of course I'm not as I'm not as vicious as I used to be in my younger days but one still finds many books around that extend the bounds of human stupidity so this gives me a chance to operate so this the mistake to avoid which Barry Smith is one of those who commits this is to confuse when we say talk about a priori concept with innate concept now an innate concept would be somewhat of a biological notion say one could have people have held their various people hold this view that the human brain is structured in such a way that we have to grasp the world in certain ways there are various evolutionary arguments for that that people have given so according to this theory this account of things people are structured in brains are structured in certain ways and that's opposed to an empiricist theory which would be we get all our concepts from experience now this isn't what we're talking about one we're talking about a priori concept now to take an a priori proposition which is not a concept suppose we just considered two plus two equals four so as I mentioned the first section a priori judgment is one that we can grasp to be true just by understanding the proposition we don't need to investigate whether it's true we don't need to test it out so an a priori proposition isn't an also would be true a priori concept the question wouldn't be how did we acquire the concept but it's one that we can see it for the a priori proposition is one that we can grasp be true an a priori concept is one that we need in order to make sense of a certain aspect of experience but it's not a theory it's not to say something an a priori concept we're not talking making any kind of biological claim on that it's innate we're not giving some kind of account of the genesis of the concept in our mind or brain which are not the same thing incidentally because although some people think that they are there is a lot I must give one further digression there I'm afraid I'm as I get older I give more and more digressions in there was an article that came out by Robert knows it called on Austrian methodology and then someone who's a very well-known Austrian economist did a very long response to the to the article so one of the points that in this response was that how is how it's relevant to knows it's argument I don't need to go into but the author the response said well some some people might argue that the events in the mind are correlated with events in the brain but no one would say that the mind is identical to the brain or a mental event is identical to the event in the mind and the funny thing is that's one of the leading theories so there are lots of people who'd say exactly that but I say that's just a digression but I just point out because we have to see this the innate ideas view is a view biological view and this isn't what's meant what we're talking about when we're talking about a priori concept now we can see why would we want to why is it important to make this distinction well supposing we made the mistake of think that just thinking that a priori concepts were meant something like that the brain is structured in a certain way so that we have to think that way then we would have the problem well if that's right why should we think that using those concepts enables us to have any contact with the truth maybe that's just the way our mind our brain or mind is structured but we're going to be coming up with false ideas but the point of saying it's an a priori concept is that the certain field of experience doesn't make sense without the a priori concept so that it's a logical point it's saying this doesn't make sense without the concept it's not a point of biology now there is a passage one of the I should mention one of the if you're interested in praxeology in it want to study methodology of economics one of the most important books is the one by Mises epistemological problems of economics now in there's a statement in the edition published by the Mises Institute there's a statement by Mises that might lead you to think that he's favoring this biological model the one I said was the wrong one he says reason history and logic are historical phenomena human logic is a historical phase between pre-human non-logic on the one hand and superhuman logic on the other so you might think if you when you read this you might think oh well Mises is some kind of relativistic saying there's some stage when human beings didn't think in logically the way we do now and maybe there'll be some stage in the future where people think in some kind of superhuman terms we can't grasp that now but in fact what he's doing in that passage is stating the view he's opposing he's not stating his own view so people sometimes get confused in that in fact that's a general problem in reading Mises that he'll very often go on for a long time and expressing a certain view and it's the view he's going to oppose but people will think oh this is his view but he he's sometimes isn't complete explicit and he won't say here's the view I'm opposing he'll just say here's a view and he'll sketch it out and then he'll give the refutation later so as I say he's just giving the view he's opposed to he's not giving the view he favors himself now what Mises does say and this is his his real position is that we can't conceive of a thought that doesn't follow the rules of logic in the way we know them and he's reluctant to make statements about reality apart from our concepts because he's a follower of Kant but we have our concepts give us knowledge of what he called the phenomenal world but there is a numinal world and interpretation of that is extremely disputed to which our concepts don't apply we can't have knowledge of that so Mises is reluctant to say anything about absolute reality but you should remember that in Kant in terms of phenomenal world covers everything to which the law of causality applies law of non-contradiction so it covers a lot of territory so if you say this is if you say Mises says or Kant would say this is true of the phenomenal world that's a very strong claim in it the fact that he he reluctant to talk about reality as such shouldn't be taken as an indication of skepticism on his part or the part of Kant either I ran to the contrary not withstanding now here again we'll deal with a point I covered in the first lecture is that Mises often talks about a priori concept such as the concept of action that I've been talking about but he will very often even though he says he says he he's discussed a priori concept very often what he'll actually be talking about is an a priori proposition for example he says action aims to to reduce felt uneasiness so this how do we know that lies is a proposition or a judgment rather than a concept well because it has more than one idea in it so a concept remember is something we can think about and a proposition is is just an assertion it's really the verbal expression of a judgment now you know some one of the previous sides I wasn't very careful about that of course I put that in just to see people would spot the problem but you see the difference the concept is an idea and the the judgment is an assertion about concept in the proposition is the verbal expression of the judgment and there's also a distinction between propositions and sentences but I don't think I need to go into that or even if I do need to go into it I'm not going to now what do we mean when we talk about an a priori proposition well this is one that can be known apart from experience we don't have to test it out for example two plus two equals four I don't have to keep taking pairs of objects and then putting one pair and another pair saying does this add up to four and then keep testing that out well so far two plus two equals four but you never know the next time you try it no that wouldn't be right it's as soon as I understand the proposition I realize it's correct I realize it's it's true now you notice I phrase this as an a priori proposition is one that can be known to be true apart from experience it doesn't have to be uh known to be true apart from experience for example uh someone could learn an a priori truth uh just say just from having someone tell them it's true someone reliable say imagine you're in a math class and your instructor tells you that some mathematical theorem is true and you believe that the theorem is true and you have good grounds for doing so because that teacher is very reliable so then you would you would believe the the theorem is true not because you've thought about it or proved it and realized it's true because you believe the teacher so you would know it's true but you wouldn't but you would be uh learning it uh in a way that involved experience so there you would not be acquiring that you would not be knowing it's true just by thinking about it but it's an a priori proposition because it could be known to be true apart from experience now there's another complication again in philosophy there's always more and more complication that's what makes it so much fun but one is when we talk about could be known apart from experience apart from whose experience we could have cases where some people could realize a proposition is true just by thinking it and others others couldn't but so what the requirement there that's a difficult issue but again that's one another one i'm going to to a sidestep in this lecture now here's one place where it's very important to distinguish between a priori concept remember concept is an idea an a priori proposition an a priori concept remember is one that's not acquired from experience because or at least from because you need that concept in order to make excuse me you you need that concept excuse me sorry about that i guess some of the anti-praxeologists would rather i stop so you need the concept in order to make sense of a certain part of experience so remember the argument is you don't can't you don't acquire that concept from experience because you need it in order to understand the experience in the first place now a priori proposition is different an a priori proposition is just an assertion about a verbal expression an assertion about a concept so an a priori proposition is one that you can know to be true just by thinking about it but it doesn't follow and many people get this wrong it doesn't follow that an a that an a priori proposition has to consist of a priori concepts let's take say the proposition nothing can be red or green all over at the same time well it's seen quite plausible that red and green or concepts acquired through experience they're not they're not a priori concepts but nevertheless if people who think that's an a priori truth are right it's one that we can know to be true just by thinking about it so another example the one i gave in the initial lecture consider the proposition Aristotle could not have been a piece of tissue paper that's one neither Aristotle nor tissue paper is an a priori concept but the proposition Aristotle couldn't have been a piece of tissue paper is nevertheless a priori true so uh someone who who doesn't like Kantian theory of knowledge or Mises variant on it somebody thinks that all concepts required through experience could nevertheless accept a priori knowledge and Murray Rothbard was fell into this group entirely Rothbard in his philosophical views was an Aristotelian Tomas and he thought that all our concepts required through experience he didn't accept a priori concepts but he still accepted a priori propositions because just for the point on the grounds i mentioned that you're not committed to a priori concepts if you accept a priori propositions now before i get into this slide i'll just mention one other point that sometimes people have made me gotten wrong it sometimes happens suppose you you're trying to figure out is a proposition a priori sometimes you can test that out by what's called a performative contradiction in that you're very if you deny the proposition you couldn't deny the proposition unless the proposition were true let me give you an example suppose i said i have never i say said in english i have never spoken in english sentence so i couldn't i couldn't say that proposition i have never spoken in english sentence without speaking in english sentence so my very attempt to assert the proposition shows that the proposition is false i say i've never spoken in english sentence but that is an english sentence so it's false that i've never spoken in english sentence my my saying it shows that it's false and now the point to bear in mind this is i think a very useful technique this performative contradiction but it isn't in general true that denying an a priori proposition involves a performative contradiction for example suppose i say two plus two equals five that's the negation of the a priori or a negate it implies the falsity of the a priori proposition two plus two equals four but it's not the case or at least i'm not seeing its case that my saying two i could only say two plus two equals five if in fact two plus two equals four so my saying two plus two equals five doesn't manifest or show that two plus two equals four or similarly uh if i use the example i gave a few minutes ago if i say Aristotle could have been a piece of tissue paper my saying that doesn't show that he couldn't have been so it's not a test for an a priori proposition that denying it leads to a performative performative contradiction now many people find the idea of a priori truth to be very hard to accept they say how could we learn truths about the world just by thinking about them uh suppose say i wanted to find out how many people are in this lecture i'd have to count how many there are i couldn't just think to myself it must be that there are so and so many people here i'd have to investigate i'd have to look into what the truth of the matter is so some people say doesn't this rule out a priori knowledge uh so one way and this is the way the logical positivists uh made room for a priori truth the logical positivists did not reject a priori truth but they said a priori truth or what they call analytic propositions or tautology suppose they would say suppose we have two plus two equals four they would say four is just another way of saying two plus two so two plus two equals four isn't really telling you anything and so the contrast would be with what's called synthetic propositions which are not tautology so in this view they're synthetic they're analytic propositions which are tautologies they're not telling you anything new and they're synthetic or empirical propositions that are telling you new uh facts about the world and you remember i won't mention it now but there's a distinction between the i mentioned the first lecture there's a distinction between how can't define a synthetic truth it's anything that's non-analytic and the positivists had a different definition they thought synthetic meant empirical which would mean a proposition that has to be confirmed by the senses to know whether it's true or false now surprisingly a lot of people think that mesis thought that the truths of economics are synthetic a priori but in he doesn't actually say this in human action he says in human action that the truths of economics the principles of human action are tautologies so this seems kind of something we we wouldn't expect him to say wouldn't we say well if he says they're tautologies then isn't he saying they're not giving us any new knowledge they're he's just saying it's a way of conventions about how we use words but his way out of this he seems to be put in a kind of a box he says he doesn't want to say the proposition he doesn't say the propositions are synthetic but if they're tautologies then they're not telling us anything useful so that's what he denies he denies the logical positivist view of tautologies he says we can have useful tautologies now we could certainly come up with examples of a useless tautology for example the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein gives as an example he says imagine that you ask somebody about the weather and the person answers you well it's either raining or it's not raining well that's it tautologies and applicates an instance of a law of non-contradiction but it doesn't tell you anything about the weather so it's that sort of example that the positivist had in mind they said look aren't tautol if you if you just have tautologies well they're true enough they're just definitions or applications of law of logic parts of definition but they're not telling you anything interesting or important so Mises answered he said well he thinks that this isn't true of all tautologies there are tautologies that do convey information to us for example mathematics according to the positivists consists of tautologies but we certainly learn say we learn mathematical theorems they're not theorems that are obvious to us we learn about them so we can have cases of tautologies that do convey useful information there's a very good article by someone who accepted this view namely that economics is a priori a priori propositions of tautology but some tautologies are useful and this is uh Leland Jaeger who for many years was a professor at Auburn and used to until the past few years he very often used to lecture the Mises Institute so he has I think I put the reference here in the note a very good article defending this point of view I should say it's not the point of view I would myself favor but he gives a very strong case for this now in one of Mises last words the ultimate foundation of economic science Mises seems more sympathetic to the notion of synthetic a priori truth a synthetic a priori truth would be one that we can know to be true by thinking about it but isn't a tautology it does give us new knowledge of the world so what Mises even that book though Mises doesn't say that economics consists of synthetic a priori truth he just says which I think is a quite interesting point he says suppose someone says there are no synthetic a priori truth he says that appears to be a synthetic a priori truth if it is true so he thinks this would raise a problem for those who hold that position now I should say one just to say there are all sorts of complications in philosophy just one other that I'll mention is an a priori truth remember is one that I can know to be true just by thinking about it once I see understand the proposition I grasp that it's true so we're talking here about a theory of knowledge we talk about epistemology but this isn't the same as saying that a truth is necessary when we say something couldn't be otherwise something couldn't be otherwise it's something as opposed to contingent something might or might not be true say it's a contingent truth that you're all here in this lecture room you might have been somewhere else but we can have a priori propositions that are not necessary suppose I take the considered statement I now exist so I can by understanding this proposition I grasp but it's true but it's not by any means not by any means necessary it might have been that I didn't exist at this moment I could have just died right right right now I hope that doesn't come around for a while at least a while yet but it isn't necessary that I exist but I now exist is a priori now I've covered the a priori at excessive length but I want to deal with a few other points in the in the time remaining one is me's attach great importance we call methodological individualism that's the view that only individuals act so suppose we say innate the united states declared war on japan uh december 8th 1941 that would be explained as uh uh president rosevelt made a speech to congress on that day and after that congress voted for a declaration of war and as a result of that and because of the system american legal system various consequences happened from that it isn't that there's some kind of entity the united states that was acting apart from the actions of particular individuals so important point to bear in mind on this is that it doesn't follow from methodological individualism that only individuals exist that nations classes and so on don't exist that would be view we could call eliminativism about nations or classes but the view isn't say that there's no such thing as a nation or class it's just that only individuals act now another point to bear in mind i've seen people wrongly say this we shouldn't say that it's a metaphor to say that the united states declared war on japan december 8th 1941 a metaphor is uh metaphors are false say if i say uh of someone he was a lion in controversy he's not the person isn't a real lion but it's not a metaphor that the united states declared war on japan on december 8th 1941 it's a perfectly true statement it's just that the way the truth conditions of a statement are given by the actions of individuals but it's not a metaphorical statement and a point mesis makes on methodological individualism is that he's not saying that individuals come in tying before groups say we're born into families and we live in society so he's not saying well we started off with just one individual and then families and societies developed after that this is a view again on how action is to be understood only individuals act uh one that i i didn't go into in the lecture on history what i did say is that the historian is opposed to the praxeologists is trying to understand individual events you remember those who came to my lecture yesterday the historian is using the method of specific understanding in order to grasp the individuality of an act and one way that the historian does that is by constructing what's called ideal types an ideal type it was the main theorist who used that was used that concept was the great sociologist max vapor the one gary north was talking about in his lecture earlier this morning one mesis friend so what we do in an ideal type is mesis says it's the representation of complex phenomena of reality you're men of institutions or ideology so even when you're talking about an institution or an ideology you'll make the person construct the ideal type will be talking about human motivation so what you do in an ideal type is to exaggerate certain characteristics like suppose you say the ideal type of the capitalist or the bourgeois will be you'll just attribute certain personality traits to uh someone of that ideal type and you'll try to say how would someone given just those personality traits act say we have the uh the how would say someone who is a typical member of the bourgeoisie act and then after we've constructed the ideal type then we can use that to help us explain uh the actions of individuals they won't conform perfectly to the ideal type but uh using the ideal type won't nevertheless help us do so so I think uh I don't know whether this is the ideal way to end the lecture but I think I will end it at this point so thanks very much