Praxeology and understanding: An analysis of the controversy in Austrian Economics

The Austrian roots of the economics of institutions

“…Due to this fact, the principles that guide the scientific explanation are valid as much in economics as in law, politics, exact sciences, and social sciences because they support the idea of methodological monism. This vision is shared by a certain number of contemporary "Austrians" (Mises 1966;Rothbard 1957;Selgin 1988), sometimes with subtleties (for example, as is the case of the Mengerian monism, Mises is a dualist) that we will not develop. 7 Conversely, Hayek, for example, does not share this conception.…”

“…7 Cf. for example Selgin (1988) Dufourt and Garrouste (1993). the "hard core" of the Austrian research program poses a real problem when we want to produce a formal model because we must take into account the fact that the time differs according to the individuals and according to time for each individual.…”

“…It is understood that this part of 8 Cf. Selgin (1988) Dufourt and Garrouste (1993). Boettke (1998) gives an interesting analysis of Mises'apriorist methodology.…”

“…The value of a product is therefore subjective in the sense that it is specific to each individual. For the supporters of the "praxeological" approach (Mises 1966;Selgin 1988), the concept of stable preferences is not pertinent because the revelation of preferences by a rational action (praxeological category) does not constitute a praxeological category and therefore does not exist a priori.…”

Ludwig von Mises on the epistemological foundation for social sciences reconstructed

“…37 Mises ([1949Mises ([ ] 1966 argues, for example: 'Historicism aimed at replacing it [economic theory] by economic history; positivism recommended the substitution of an illusory social science, which should adopt the logical structure and pattern of Newtonian mechanics'. See also Selgin's (1988) nice essay on praxeology and Mises's critique of positivism and historicism. 38 Indeed, Mises shares the view of Menger, who distinguishes between studying phenomena from a general (the task of theory) and individual (the task of history) perspective.…”