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Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic
Current debates between behavioural and orthodox economists indicate that the role and epistemological status of first principles is a particularly pressing problem in economics. As an alleged paragon of extreme apriorism, the methodology of Austrian economics in Mises’ tradition is often dismissed...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2019
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34776551 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02150-8 |
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author | Linsbichler, Alexander |
author_facet | Linsbichler, Alexander |
author_sort | Linsbichler, Alexander |
collection | PubMed |
description | Current debates between behavioural and orthodox economists indicate that the role and epistemological status of first principles is a particularly pressing problem in economics. As an alleged paragon of extreme apriorism, the methodology of Austrian economics in Mises’ tradition is often dismissed as untenable in the light of modern philosophy. In particular, the defence of the so-called fundamental axiom of praxeology—“Man acts.”—by means of pure intuition is almost unanimously rejected. However, in recently resurfacing debates, the extremeness of Mises’ epistemological position has been called into question. Rather than directly engaging in these exegetical discussions, this paper aims to substantiate the possibility and plausibility of conventionalist defences of praxeology per se. The proposed shift includes settling for an analytic fundamental axiom and acknowledging the prima facie tenability of other research programs than praxeology. Since conventionalist praxeology is only moderately aprioristic, mainstream economists and philosophers might be more likely to engage in fruitful discussions with those Austrian scholars who elaborate pragmatic arguments for praxeology instead of invoking pure intuition. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8550560 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85505602021-11-10 Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic Linsbichler, Alexander Synthese S.I.: First Principles in Science Current debates between behavioural and orthodox economists indicate that the role and epistemological status of first principles is a particularly pressing problem in economics. As an alleged paragon of extreme apriorism, the methodology of Austrian economics in Mises’ tradition is often dismissed as untenable in the light of modern philosophy. In particular, the defence of the so-called fundamental axiom of praxeology—“Man acts.”—by means of pure intuition is almost unanimously rejected. However, in recently resurfacing debates, the extremeness of Mises’ epistemological position has been called into question. Rather than directly engaging in these exegetical discussions, this paper aims to substantiate the possibility and plausibility of conventionalist defences of praxeology per se. The proposed shift includes settling for an analytic fundamental axiom and acknowledging the prima facie tenability of other research programs than praxeology. Since conventionalist praxeology is only moderately aprioristic, mainstream economists and philosophers might be more likely to engage in fruitful discussions with those Austrian scholars who elaborate pragmatic arguments for praxeology instead of invoking pure intuition. Springer Netherlands 2019-03-12 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8550560/ /pubmed/34776551 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02150-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | S.I.: First Principles in Science Linsbichler, Alexander Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title | Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title_full | Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title_fullStr | Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title_full_unstemmed | Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title_short | Austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
title_sort | austrian economics without extreme apriorism: construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic |
topic | S.I.: First Principles in Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34776551 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02150-8 |
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