 I think it's perhaps ironic that the speaker in this room before me was Judge Napolitano. Judge Napolitano has a very dramatic speaking style. I'm very much a monotone delivery, so I'm afraid in this lecture I won't be telling you how some of you will die in the public square. I hope I'm not one of them. Those of you who had the misfortune to attend my praxeology lecture on Monday will remember I was rather rushed for time at the end. I didn't explain fully all the points that I wanted to make about the a priori and similar mysteries, and what I want to do in this lecture is go into some more detail about that, including material from, rather, is this on? Oh, yes, I always want to say the old one, if you can't hear me, please put up your hand. Anyone who puts up his hand is lying. Okay, so I want to go into more detail on the mysteries of the a priori, and also, though, to have some material contrasting history with the praxeology, what are the distinct disciplines, and I'll continue this in discussion of history in my last lecture for today, which is this afternoon on theory and history, at least they were kind enough when they gave me three lectures in a row, not to schedule the third one immediately after the preceding two. Now, Mises makes a contrast between theory and history, praxeology and history. Praxeology is a general science of human action. Remember, in praxeology, we're trying to explain not particular action, but general feature that general features that all actions possess. For example, if we say action uses means to achieve an end, this is true of all actions, or an actor will always choose his most highly value preference. This is something that applies universally. It's true of all actions. Now, it doesn't tell us anything about particular action. We were trying to say, why am I giving this lecture? Why are you attending this lecture? Those would be examples of particular actions that are not covered by praxeology. Mises says, well, because in history we're dealing with these particular actions, there aren't laws of them. It isn't that they're in praxeology. We have laws of human action, laws that apply to every action. But history is concerned with particular events, so we don't have laws. Now, you might raise an objection here, which is that way Mises characterizes praxeology, that it's one of general science of action dealing with general features of all actions, then obviously there can't be praxeological laws dealing with particular events, because particular events are not a general feature of all action, fortunately, that I'm giving a lecture to a particular event, but even if there can't be praxeological laws of particular events, that isn't the only type of law that there is, aren't there scientific laws which in Mises' view, and here he was quite against the views of Carl Popper, Mises thought that scientific laws are based on induction. Let's say the scientists will study particular events that happen, and you'll formulate theories on that basis that are then tested out. So why couldn't we have historical laws, laws about particular events that were not praxeological but were inductive, but Mises said, no, no, we can't do that, because scientists can perform experiments. They can have controlled experiments in which they just change one variable. You can say, make certain chemicals and say what happens if you increase one of the chemicals by a certain amount, keeping everything else the same. You can't do that with people you don't have controlled experiments, so Mises said, you don't can't have laws about particular events. Now, as I said, praxeology is a formal science, and by formal I mean it deals with the general features of any action, not with particular concrete events. I've already said that about ten times, but that isn't going to stop me from saying it again. Okay, so question obviously right is how is it that we're able to come up with these general laws that apply to any action? Mises had a distinctive answer to this, which isn't the same as the one Rothbard had. Mises said, if we, in order to understand human behavior, we see people walking around, moving their bodies in various ways, doing things, we have to employ certain categories, we have to have certain concepts or ideas that we use in order to understand human behavior. If we didn't have these concepts or ideas, we wouldn't be able to understand what's going on, say we would just see bodies moving and all sorts of, we wouldn't just say in the way we might see physical particles moving, we wouldn't understand what people are doing. In order to grasp what people are doing, we have to have certain concepts, particularly the concept of action, and Mises called this an a priori concept. By that he meant a priori concept is one that you have to have in order to understand experience or a certain range of experience. So unless we have this concept of action, we won't be able to understand what's going on, say if we would just see various physical motions, but we wouldn't grasp what was going on without this a priori concept. So one mistake a lot of people make is they confuse a priori concept as Mises use the term with an innate concept, something like something that's built into us by evolution. Some people think the brain is hardwired to think in certain ways, so they think when they hear reference to a priori concept, they think that what Mises is claiming is that we're kind of built to view things in a certain way, that this is something that evolution or whatever has brought us about has gotten into us. We have to think in this way because this is the way our brain is structured. But that is a different question. The question how we arrive, how the genetic question, how we arrive at our way of thinking, what gave rise to us is a different question from that of the a priori. An a priori concept is one, as I say, that you need to understand a certain range of experience. An a priori proposition, which is different, a proposition is different from a concept. A concept is an idea in your mind, not necessarily an idea about your mind, but an idea that you have. A proposition is a judgment, it's saying that something is the case or isn't the case. So an a priori judgment would be one that you can immediately see to be true by thinking about it. And as I suggested in my lecture Monday, it's one that doesn't need testing to establish once you grasp it's true that's it. So see a priori concept, a different a priori concept is one you need to have in order to grasp a certain range of experience. This is not something that is something that's just built in nature, built into your brain, we're not addressing questions. How you got the concept, it's what you, the concept is. If you have it and you can see supposing we made this mistake, supposing we start talking about innate ideas, things that are ideas that are simply built into us, then we would have the question, well how do we know those ideas will lead us to truth? Maybe we've been hardwired to arrive at falsehoods, but that isn't what's at issue with either a priori concepts or a priori truth. So the contrary notion here is an a priori concept. Again, you need the concept in order to understand a certain range of experience, a priori proposition or judgments, when you immediately grasp to be true. So it has nothing to do with the genetic basis by which you have these concepts or judgments. Now, there's one passage for those of you who've read Mises' Epistemological Problems of Economics. If you're interested in the question methodology, that's a very good book to read. I especially like the index to the English translation of that book because I did it. So now there's a passage that might give a misleading impression of Mises' position. He says here, reason, history and logic are historical phenomena. Human logic is a historical phase between pre-human, non-logic on the one hand and super-human logic on the other. So this might lead the unwary reader to think, oh, Mises is some kind of evolution of thought. One time people were pre-logical, then they're going to be super-logical in the future and we're in this intermediate stage. But this, one reason I brought this up, this is somewhat of an obstacle in reading Mises. He very often will elaborate at quite some length the position he's opposing. So this is not what Mises' own position, but the position Mises is opposing. This is one thing you need to bear in mind when you're reading Mises, even if you're not interested in these philosophical questions at all, although that's something that's very difficult to imagine that anyone could not be interested in these topics. Whenever you read Mises, you have to be very careful. Make sure when you attribute something to him, it's something, a position he's defending, he's not setting forward, not something where he's setting forward some position he's going to oppose. There are people who've made that mistake who might surprise you, but I'm not going to, I won't name names. So, as I say, this is not the position, this position there's been an evolution of thought is not one that Mises is defending, it's one that he's opposing. Now, he's reluctant to say that he makes claims about the nature of the world. He just says people can't help thinking in this way, in a way, say, with the concept of action, we can't make sense of human behavior without this concept. He's reluctant to make absolute claims about reality. He just says, well, we can't know anything about other logics even though there are any, even though he doesn't believe there are, but his basic point is that we need certain concepts in order to understand a certain range of experience and that makes them a priori concepts. Now, here in this, I'll be going over what I said before. Mises talks about a priori concepts, a concept of action is one we need to make sense of human behavior, but he's very often concerned with a priori propositions. The difference, again, between a concept and proposition is a concept is an idea and a proposition is an assertion. It's a judgment. If I say 2 plus 2 equals 4, that's a judgment. So I didn't take note, in an earlier slide, I didn't take note of this because I was talking about a priori concepts. I gave 2 plus 2 equals 4, that's an a priori judgment. So you understand then the difference between a priori concept and a priori judgment. Now, as I say, a priori proposition is one that you can know without confirming it empirically. If I say 2 plus 2 equals 4, I don't have to keep counting sets of objects. You have 2 here, 2 there. You add them up. They equal 4. I don't have to keep repeating that. I grasp immediately that they're 2 plus 2 equals 4. I grasp that the judgment is true. Incidentally, it reminds me the story of the easy way to estimate the number of people in a crowd is you count the legs and divide by 4. Prolong laughter, please. Okay, so as I say, an a priori proposition is one that you can know without confirming it empirically. But somebody could come to know a judgment, a proposition that's a priori true without grasping it's an a priori truth. For example, supposing there's a math theorem that you read about in a book and you believe that it's true and it is true just because it's in this textbook and you have good reason to think that's a reliable book. So you know that the proposition is true, but you wouldn't have grasped it just by thinking about it. You would have believed it because it's in the book. An a priori proposition is one that you can know just by thinking about it. Now, one point I should mention here, I don't think I have it on the slides, is one that people miss very often is an a priori proposition, let's say one where you're claiming to that you can grasp it's true just by thinking about it. You don't have to consist of a priori concepts. Remember a priori concept is one of these that you need to make sense of a range of experience. For example, suppose I say some people have given this and I think it's good, make good case rate, this is an a priori proposition. Nothing can be read and green all over at the same time. A priori claim would be, if you think about that, you'll grasp that that's true. Okay, that's, if this claims right, that's an a priori true, but it's not, it doesn't consist entirely of a priori concepts. Red and green are a priori concepts, or presumably we get these from the empirical world. A priori proposition doesn't have to consist of a priori concepts. This is, I mentioned this because some people say, oh, well, look, you know, a priori, if you have a priori, suppose a priori truth, they're just consists of ideas people have that are joined together in proposition. So how do we know they apply to reality? Don't we still have to have empirical test while we can start off with, we can have a priori propositions that make direct reference to reality, such as human beings act, actions are there in the world. So it's not a question just about talking about ideas in our mind. There are actions. So again, remember, a priori proposition doesn't have to consist of a priori concepts, although it can. So, good. I was, shows how I'm quite seen. I said, I didn't know I, whether this was on one of the slides. This is the slide where I explained that. Now, I now remember in my praxeology lecture, I was suggested that the, there was a logical positivist criticism of the notion of a priori knowledge. And the logical positivist said something like this. All true propositions are either what they called analytic or synthetic. A synthetic proposition is one that's true about the world example. I'm giving a lecture is a synthetic proposition. It's a truth about the world. An analytic proposition is what they called a truth of meaning. That this would be suppose I say, all bachelors are male. That's true just because of the way the word bachelor is defined. All bachelors are male. It isn't a discovery we make about that bachelors. They all turn out to be men. That's part of the definition. So the logical positivists said all truths are either analytic or synthetic. And the only truth that tell us something about the world, the, the analytic truths don't tell us anything about the world. All a priori truths, all truths that we can realize are true just by thinking about them are analytic. They don't tell us anything about the world. In my lecture on Monday I suggested this criticism doesn't work because we really can't sharply separate analytic and synthetic truths. There aren't most terms in language don't have clear definitions. So we can't really separate out some special realm of true, true by meaning. There aren't such things. It's really all truths are synthetic. So if you take that view, then it becomes much easier to defend a priori truths. Because then you could say, well, why can't there be truths about the world just that you realize are true that don't need further testing? Aren't there certain truths that are obviously true like human beings and. But what I want to do now is say, could we suppose we accepted this distinction, which I don't think we should between the analytic and the synthetic truth where we say they're analytic. There are certain propositions that are just true by meaning and others that are made true by what happens in the world. So as we accepted that, could we still make sense of the praxeology? Could we still make sense of playing music once say that we can arrive at real knowledge through praxeology? I should say just my way of digression, the logical positivists were an interesting group of people. They were a group centered at the University of Vienna in the 1920s and 30s by the head of the group was Maurit Schlick, who was a professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna. There were a number of very eminent philosophers who were in that group such as Rudolph Karnab and the mathematician Hans Hahn attended. There were others who Wittgenstein had some connection with them, although he was definitely not a logical positivist. They were interested in him. I should say Schlick illustrates the dangers of an academic career at the University of Vienna. One of his doctoral students wasn't very happy about something Schlick had done. It's uncertain what the problem was. Some people say it was because Schlick had failed him in an exam or other people think that the student thought Schlick was trying to get involved with his girlfriend. But in any event, he came to Schlick's office and shot him dead. So this is something you have. That would be a good reason to avoid being a logical positivist. So what we're trying to do is come up with some defense against the logical positivist's attack on the way Mises proceeds in praxeology. Many people find the idea of a priori knowledge very odd. They'll say, well, how can we find out anything about the world just by thinking about it? If I wanted to know how many people are in this room, I'd have to count them. I couldn't say, well, I thought about the matter and there have to be 23 people here. I have an argument that shows there must be 23 people here. That wouldn't make much sense. So one way of responding to that, again, it's not the way I recommend, but it's just what we're doing now is saying, what happens if we take this view of the logical positivist where we divide truth into analytic, synthetic, seriously? We could say analytic propositions, remember the logical positivists say all a priori truths are analytic. So we could say analytic propositions don't give us new knowledge. They're just ways of saying the same thing. They're just tautologies, just a way of saying the same thing. So they're not really telling us anything new. And then there's a contrasting view that there are some a priori truths or synthetic that they do give us knowledge of the world. Now I advanced in my lecture on Monday the view while really all propositions are in synthetic. There aren't any special truths of meaning that can be separated out. But there are some people who think there are analytic propositions that don't give us new knowledge, but there are also a priori truths that are synthetic and do give us new knowledge that are not tautology. Now one thing I find very interesting, people often assume that Mises was a defender of the synthetic a priori. And if you take my view he should have been a defender of the synthetic a priori because I don't think there are any analytic propositions, at least not any interesting ones. But Mises never says that in human action. He says that he does not say that the propositions of economics are synthetic a priori truths. He says they're a priori truths. And he says in fact in some places that the propositions of economics are tautology. Remember tautology is a statement that isn't saying anything new. Wittgenstein gives an example of a tautology. Suppose someone asks you what the weather is and you say well it's either raining or not raining. That tautology is just an example of a particular logical law. Everything is either a or not a, but it isn't giving you any information about the world. You don't really know what the weather is if you know it's either raining or not raining. So some people would say well if praxeology consists of the so-called a priori truths but they're all tautologies then it isn't giving you any useful information. Again I don't think this is a view you should adopt but in some places Mises does seem to adopt this or does adopt this. So he says praxeology consists of tautology so does that entail that praxeology isn't useful. Again Mises deals with the point this isn't correct. There are tautologies that do give you new knowledge. For example according to the logical poet it says mathematics consists of tautologies but we certainly learn something when we prove some new mathematical theorem. I recommend here there's a very good article by Leland Jaeger, tautologies in economics and natural sciences. So he has a very good discussion of this notion of the useful tautology. Now in one of his last books which is called The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Sciences, a very short book, Mises seems somewhat sympathetic to the synthetic a priori. Remember synthetic a priori we can have a priori truths ones that are, we know to be true just by thinking about them but they do give us knowledge of the world. So Mises in this book again doesn't commit himself to say praxeology consists of synthetic a priori truths but he does raise, I think it's very interesting. He says suppose you say there aren't any synthetic a priori truths. Paul Samuelson is one who said that he said there are no empirical a priori truths that mean every a priori truth doesn't tell you, no a priori truth tells you anything about the world. So Mises says suppose you say there are no synthetic a priori truths. Well how do you know that? That appears to be something people are supposed to just think about and realize it's true. So if it's true it's an a priori truth but if it were true it would be a truth about the world. So we would have a synthetic a priori truth. There are no synthetic a priori truths that appears to be somewhat problematic to say the least. So again I think that's an interesting argument Mises just mentions it in passing. Now one other confusion that we have to avoid about synthetic a priori truths is that a synthetic a priori truth doesn't have to be necessary. The necessary truth is one that couldn't be otherwise as they say in a logical jar. And it's true in all possible worlds. It couldn't be false. We could have a priori truths that are not necessary. For example I now exist if I say it is a priori. Grasp this is true just by thinking about it but it's not necessary. I might not exist. It's not a necessary truth. So you have to be very careful to distinguish a priori. It's a category of how we know things, know them by thinking about them that they don't require testing. And necessary truths, necessary truths is we talk about what ontology, metaphysics, what must or be the case, contingent truth is one that is true but might not be. That's not epistemology. In we talk about a priori we're concerned with epistemology. Now I now want to deal with another part which is very important. I dealt with this a little bit in my first lecture on praxeology. It comes in both in praxeology and in history that this principle applies to both. And that's methodological individualism. This is the principle that only individuals act. Actions of collectives like nations or classes have to be cashed out in terms of the actions of individuals. It isn't the view that nations, classes and collective entities don't exist. It's the view that only individuals act. Mises makes I think a very important point that one that is often missed. And this quotation is from Epistemological Prom. He's not claiming that individuals come before groups. It exists in time before groups that say we start off in a state of nature with separate individuals and these get together and form collective. Somebody could say look as far back as we know human beings have always existed in tribes or groups. That isn't the claim. It isn't a claim about temporal priority. It's rather a claim about that only individuals act. So he isn't saying say that a species, a race, or family has to come into existence after the people who are in it. Now, I'll be dealing with this later in my last lecture this afternoon, is the historian can use praxeology to help explain history. Although you can't deduce particular events from history, the historian can use praxeological laws to help explain history in my lecture this afternoon. And Mises takes this to be part of a more general point the historic praxeology is one of the sciences and the historian can always use the results of the sciences in helping him explain actions. Mises thinks that the historian in trying to explain some phenomena always has to be in agreement with what the sciences have established. For example, supposing the historian is trying to explain, there was various times in European history there were mass persecution of witches, the European witch craze of the 16th century, famous essay by Hugh Trevor Roper. How would the historian explain that? Well, according to Mises, the historian wouldn't say well what happened was there were various women who were in communion with the devil so they had to get rid of them because that wouldn't accord with modern scientific knowledge so the historian wouldn't do that. It's kind of a rather odd, somewhat ironic that one of the leading 20th century historians, witchcraft was the English-century Montague Summers who did believe exactly that and his books on witchcraft give that explanation. Of course, Mises could say he shouldn't have done that but in fact it isn't right. The historians always do use, explain things in accord with current scientific knowledge. Sometimes they don't but according to Mises they should. And although the historian can use praxeology results of the sciences to help him explain particular events, that won't be enough because in the sciences we're not, again as I've said before, we're not trying to explain particular events. We can't do this through praxeology. So what the historian has to do, according to Mises, very often he'll list various causal factors involved in a particular event. But after he's done that he has to estimate how influential these factors have been and to do that he has to use his own judgment. He can't apply general rules to estimate the influence of these causal factors. Mises calls this process of judgment a specific understanding or the German term for stay and it's a kind of understanding of a particular event. So what the historian in using specific understanding is doing is trying to explain how someone with particular values and beliefs would act, say if a particular actor had certain beliefs about the world and certain value, certain ends he was trying to achieve he would do such and such. So by imagining that the historian is then able to explain particular events, you can, the same type of judgment where you have an intuitive understanding of the particular can be compared with entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur is trying to see is there a profit opportunity in a particular situation. Mises used the term for stay in the same term for apply to the historian, the specific understanding also for the entrepreneur. Again, the historian or the entrepreneur isn't using fixed rules but is trying to, is using his intuitive judgment. And in doing so, the historian uses what's called ideal types. This is a concept Mises gets from Max Weber, the great German sociologist who was a friend of his. So what an ideal type is, it's the representation of complex phenomenon of reality, your men institution of ideology. So what you do with an ideal type, even if it's an institution, you always make reference to human motivations and you say someone with such and such motivations would act in a certain way. So you imagine somebody who has say, well, say the warrior is motivated by military glory. So you would impute certain values to him and then by using that ideal type you could use that to help you explain what particular people in history have done. So in considering ideal types, they don't have exact definitions, they're just clusters of characteristics that may or may not apply in particular instances. For example, suppose you have the ideal type of a revolution, it might be that the American revolution doesn't meet all these characteristics, but if it meets enough of them then you can use the ideal type. So that is the basic way Mises tries to distinguish praxeology from history, so again we have the contrast between praxeology which is general laws of any action in history which deals with particular events. So I can't think of a good joke to end with unless you take the whole lecture to be extended jokes, I think we'll stop.