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Mon Dec 11 09:25:28 2006 |
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Pat Gunning writes:
"... to define anything, we must
imagine the thing without one or more of the attributes that we employ
in our definition. What we imagine is, to Mises, an imaginary
construction. This is all that Mises means by an imaginary construction.
It is also what he has in mind when he says that economics and
praxeology cannot do without imaginary constructions. He applies this
general idea to what he calls praxeological phenomena -- phenomena
related to what he calls action. The method of imaginary constructions
is a means of reaching an understanding of a specific case of economic
interaction by conceiving of the interaction in the absence of some
characteristic that we use to define it."
Whew.
To the extent I understand the above, it was effectively opposed by Francis
Bacon, in Novum Organum, who wrote:
"Man ... can understand ... so much only as he has observed ... of the
course of nature."
"One method of delivery (from error) alone remains to us; which is simply
this: we must lead men to the particulars themselves; and their series and
order; while men on their side must force themselves for awhile to lay their
notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts."
Many regard Bacon's attitude as a vital ingredient in the progress of
science.
Thus Milton Friedman became viewed as outstanding not mainly by recycling
ancient views from Nassau Senior et al., but by persuading people (with a
little help from Anna Schwartz) that the Great Depression did not spring
from endogenous faults of the market economy. He did this by documenting
blundering and bad timing by leaders of the Federal Reserve System, which
could be seen as exogenous. I disagree, but that means nothing when so many
powerful and heavily subsidized pundits seized on his views. And so it came
to pass that the recycled prejudices of Nassau Senior et al. came to be
labeled as "monetarism", and imposed on much of the world. As we work out
from under this handicap, which now has alienated much of the world, we
would do well to focus on facts.
Mason Gaffney
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