The Action Axiom, true a priori?

[Seos]

"Learning means gaining knowledge which is different from gaining experience."

How is it different?

Well a priori learning (assuming such a thing exists) could be done without any of our senses functioning. Lets say our brains are removed from our bodies and kept alive in jars and we can still think. Through a priori learning we should be able to gain knowledge even though we have no senses and nothing to gain experience with.

Although as I think about it more I'm starting to think that there is no a priori learning and that "I act" and "I am thinking therefore I am" are analytical rather than synthetic. In which case gaining knowledge and gaining experience can be the same thing.

Anyway the important thing is that in order for a priori learning (or synthetic a priori) to exist learning and gaining experience must be different.
So it would be contradictory to say that they are the same thing and at the same time that Humans act is synthetically a priori.

"The point of the holographic/robot humans is that in this possible reality they represent humans, it is not just that they are lookalikes/actalikes they are what we know as other humans. The whole point is that they are completely indistinguishable, by robot human I did not mean that they have the skin of humans and are robots underneath I mean they are completely physically human but they as I said "are not trying to achieve ends at all"."

How would you know that they don't act?

You don't and that's the point. You don't know that they don't act, just like we don't know that humans do act.

And what about this: There are animals that look like sheep and are indeed sheep. They act.
I gained this knowledge from from experience.

What can you or others say against it? "Sheep act" is certainly not a priori. Is it different from "humans act"?

The people on the other side of the argument will say that us being human and not sheep makes it different.


Hi Hazlitt, thank you having an unchanging written down account of what Mises means by "humans act" will help alot.

[Seos]

Another point that we discussed on the thread is the importance (for austrian economics) that the definition of Human and Act are independent. For example you can't define human as "an acting animal" or you can't define acting as "purposeful human action".

If you do that yes "Humans act" is true a priori but it is also useless. It would make it like saying "All bachelors are unmarried".

This is correct. IIRC Hazlitt tripped up here slightly here.

Hey, hey... guess what Mises did!?

http://mises.org/books/ultimate.pdf End of page 4, start of page 5:

The characteristic feature of man is precisely that he consciously acts. Man is Homo agens, the
acting animal.
All—apart from zoology—that has ever been scientifically
stated to distinguish man from nonhuman mammals is implied
in the proposition: man acts. To act means: to strive after ends,
that is, to choose a goal and to resort to means in order to attain
the goal sought.

He defined Humans as acting animals! Absolute class! I can't believe I even used the exact same wording as him in saying what you can't do!

So 20k, Mises is most definitely wrong to do so, right?

[Hazlitt]

Hi Seos,

Yes having this boook does help with the discussion a lot. How would you distinguish between humans and animals ?

I want to remind people that Rothbard and Mises disagreed with the characterisation of the Action Axiom.

Rothbard defends Mises' methodology but goes on to construct his own edifice of Austrian economic theory. Although he embraced nearly all of Mises' economics, Rothbard could not accept Mises' Kantian extreme aprioristic position in epistemology. Mises held that the axiom of human action was true a priori to human experience and was, in fact, a synthetic a priori category. Mises considered the action axiom to be a law of thought and thus a categorical truth prior to all human experience.

Murray Rothbard agreed that the action axiom is universally true and self-evident but argued that a person becomes aware of that axiom and its subsidiary axioms through experience in the world. A person begins with concrete human experience and then moves toward reflection. Once a person forms the basic axioms and concepts from his experiences with the world and from his reflections upon those experiences, he does not need to resort to external experience to validate an economic hypothesis. Instead, deductive reasoning from sound basics will validate it.

Link: Murray Rothbard's Randian Austrianism

I think the most important question in the discussion is of the truth of the Action Axiom.

Rothbard, working within an Aristotelian, Thomistic, or Mengerian tradition, justified the praxeological action axiom as a law of reality that is empirical rather than a priori. Of course, this is not the empiricism embraced by positivists. This kind of empirical knowledge rests on universal inner or reflective experience in addition to external physical experience. This type of empirical knowledge consists of a general knowledge of human action that would be considered to be antecedent to the complex historical events that mainstream economists to try to explain. The action axiom is empirical in the sense that it is self-evidently true once stated. It is not empirically falsifiable in the positivist sense. It is empirical but it is not based on empiricism as practiced by today's economics profession. Praxeological statements cannot be subjected to any empirical assessment whether it is falsificationist or verificationist.

[Seos]

I think the most important question in the discussion is of the truth of the Action Axiom.

I think we should first and foremost say whether the Action Axiom is a synthetic a priori truth first as establishing the falsity of that is what my purpose in the debate was. (I will of course indulge in a new discussion about the Action Axiom when this is completed)

Do you now agree that, no matter about the truth of it or not, "Humans act" it is certainly not a synthetic a priori truth?

And do you also agree that Mises is wrong to think you can build knowledge from analytical statements?

[feargach]

Seeing as you want us to dump the entirety of 20th century economics: Keynes, Galbraith Friedman and everyone else who thinks Austrianism is no use; seeing as you are one of the clutch on Politics.ie assuring us that the cure to all economic ills is to adopt Austrianism wholesale; seeing as you are requiring us to dump the entire central banking system to bring us back to the mid 18th century system...

Why the delay in answering the question Seos, who is has been clear about his sympathy towards Austrianism, is putting? If Austrianism is the key to saving the world, then surely its bases are rock-solid, and you would have these answers at your fingertips?

[Hazlitt]

I think we should first and foremost say whether the Action Axiom is a synthetic a priori truth first ...

Agreed. Let's look into this further before we continue. So the question we should ask ourselves is: "are there synthetic a priori truths" ?

Here's an interesting passage:

The essence of logical positivism is to deny the cognitive value of a priori knowledge by pointing out that all a priori propositions are merely analytic. They do not provide new information, but are merely verbal or tautological, asserting what has already been implied in the definitions and premises. Only experience can lead to synthetic propositions. There is an obvious objection against this doctrine, viz., that this proposition that there are no synthetic a priori propositions is in itself a—as the present writer thinks, false—synthetic a priori proposition, for it can manifestly not be established by experience.

[Hazlitt]

Seeing as you want us to dump the entirety of 20th century economics: Keynes, Galbraith Friedman and everyone else who thinks Austrianism is no use; seeing as you are one of the clutch on Politics.ie assuring us that the cure to all economic ills is to adopt Austrianism wholesale; seeing as you are requiring us to dump the entire central banking system to bring us back to the mid 18th century system...

Why the delay in answering the question Seos, who is has been clear about his sympathy towards Austrianism, is putting? If Austrianism is the key to saving the world, then surely its bases are rock-solid, and you would have these answers at your fingertips?

Why am I not surprised!

Firstly if you classify the "entirety" of 20th century economics as "Keynes, Galbraith Friedman" then you're a moron.

Secondly we're having a discussion about the Action Axiom (read the f**king thread title). If you have anything constructive to add to the discussion feel free to post your thoughts, if not - don't hijack another thread! If you want to have a rant about the Austrian school do it in the thread you started and we'll chat to you there.

[Seos]

Agreed. Let's look into this further before we continue. So the question we should ask ourselves is: "are there synthetic a priori truths" ?

Here's an interesting passage:

Precisely because it is a contentious issue I am assuming that synthetic a priori truths do exist (just that "Humans act" is not one). So that passage should not apply to me.

But you didn't respond to my questions and I need to know what I'm debating against, or if possibly we are already in agreement on this particular issue.

Do you now agree that, no matter about the truth of it or not, "Humans act" it is certainly not a synthetic a priori truth?

And do you also agree that Mises is wrong to think you can build knowledge from analytical statements?

[Christel]

I'd at this stage like to "know" the definition of "knowledge" used.

[Seos]

I'd at this stage like to "know" the definition of "knowledge" used.

"The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned" will do.