Pat,  
  
If you merely mean that things can in general be   
analyzed with logic, then this is true but only   
trivially true, and we hardly needed praxeology   
to tell us this. But in any actual analysis of   
action, we run into three sets of problems. The   
first deals with the adequacy of analytic reason   
to explain action, the second with the connection   
of practical reason and psychology, and the third   
with the social context of any exchange (excluded   
by methodological individualism and singularity).   
If by analysis, you mean the Aristotelian   
syllogism, in which the conclusion is a sentence   
containing a subject and a predicate drawn from   
the major and minor premises, then these do not   
lead to action. If you mean the practical reason,   
in which one of the premises states a desire and   
the conclusion is not a sentence but an action,   
then there is grave doubt whether mere   
ratiocination is adequate to explain actions.  At   
this point, one is deeply into human psychology,   
and into questions which economists simply cannot   
answer. But Mises denies the difference between   
the analytic and the practical, which is a   
strange stance for something that calls itself   
"praxeology." Or rather, he doesn't so much deny   
it as he shows he is ignorant of the difference.   
He says in fact: "Action and reason are   
congeneric and homogeneous; they may even be   
called two different aspects of the same thing.   
That reason has the power to make clear through   
pure ratiocination the essential features of   
action is a consequence of the fact that action   
is an offshoot of reason. (48)" One has reason to   
wonder if the author of this statement has ever   
really met a real acting human being, or is caught in an intellectual autism.  
  
Then there is the problem of actual exchanges,   
which always take place in some concrete social   
context, a context that always involves some   
notions of property, law, contract, expectations   
in exchange, custom, money, and so forth; each   
one of these these notions is value-laden and   
culturally embedded; values and culture cannot be divorced from the analysis.  
  
Throughout HA, Mises makes statements like this   
one: "The theorems attained by correct   
praxeological reasoning are not only perfectly   
certain and incontestable, like the correct mathematical theorems.  
They refer, moreover, with the full rigidity of   
their apodictic certainty and incontestability to   
the reality of action as it appears in life and   
history. Praxeology conveys exact and precise   
knowledge of real things.(48)" Now, this   
statement, and many like it, may be true or may   
be false, but nowhere in the text does Mises   
attempt anything like a demonstration. They are   
offered simply as pontifications to be accepted   
on faith alone, and not on any discernable   
attempt at anything that would qualify as logical   
demonstration. They more resemble theological   
statements, but with less reason then theologians generally offer.  
  
You will have to excuse me; my faith doesn't stretch that far.  
  
  
John C. Medaille