03-16-2014, 08:07 PM
Is somebody familiar with the book "Human action" by Ludwig von Mises? It's an economic textbook in which Mises tries to establish economics as an axiomatic-deductive science (like mathematics or geometry). His basic axiom is "human action is purposeful behaviour." This is also the first sentence of this book. It's funny because both title and the first sentence contain the whole content of the book.
From this axiom, he deduces the whole body of theory of economic science, e.g. law of marginal utility or the law of comparative cost advantage. His epistemology is an advancement of Kant's work in "Critique of pure reason." He assumes that Kant's categories of reason (=structures of our mind through which we perceive the outside world) are categories of action and solves Kant's problem which is the lack of a criterion for being able to distinct between the physical and metaphysical. Mises wrote that action connects the internal world of valuation with the external world of purposeful behaviour. He could also clarify this idealistic point of Kant who assumed that the categories of reason might create the external reality.
From this axiom, he deduces the whole body of theory of economic science, e.g. law of marginal utility or the law of comparative cost advantage. His epistemology is an advancement of Kant's work in "Critique of pure reason." He assumes that Kant's categories of reason (=structures of our mind through which we perceive the outside world) are categories of action and solves Kant's problem which is the lack of a criterion for being able to distinct between the physical and metaphysical. Mises wrote that action connects the internal world of valuation with the external world of purposeful behaviour. He could also clarify this idealistic point of Kant who assumed that the categories of reason might create the external reality.