Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

STEPHEN D.PARSONSbased on and conditioned by the circumstances that we havethis insight in our mind. Without this a priori knowledge andthe theorems derived from it we could not at all realize what isgoing on in human activity. Our experience of human actionand social life is predicated on praxeology and economictheory.(Mises 1990:9)Ambiguities arise because Mises appears to:1 conflate phenomenological and epistemological concerns. Herefers both to our ability to experience something as humanaction and our specific knowledge concerning human action;2 distinguish between a priori knowledge and theorems derivedfrom it, yet argue that both are somehow necessary in order to‘realize what is going on in human activity’;3 distinguish between praxeology and economic theory, yet againargue that both are necessary in order to experience humanaction.The weakest, yet most readily defensible, claim advanced by Misescan be interpreted in the following manner: in order to identify orrecognise any movement as a human action, then we are a prioricommitted to ascribing certain concepts to this action. This could betermed the ‘Davidsonian argument’: If we are intelligibly toattribute attitudes and beliefs, or usefully to describe motions asbehaviour, then we are committed to finding, in the pattern ofbehaviour, belief and desire, a large degree of rationality andconsistency’ (Davidson 1980:237).Davidson further argues that this a priori commitment to viewingbehaviour as goal-orientated rational behaviour distinguishes thesocial sciences from the natural sciences:Since psychological phenomena do not constitute a closedsystem, this amounts to saying they are not, even in theory,amenable to precise prediction or subsumption underdeterministic laws. The limit thus placed on the social sciencesis set not by nature, but by us when we decide to view men asrational agents with goals and purposes.(Davidson 1980:239)36