Pat Gunning wrote:
>John, after reading your post carefully, it
>seems that you are inviting me to have a
>discussion about the meaning of truth, about the
>"most important elements in a man's life," and
>about your novel conception of "gift." I do not
>regard the HES list as the proper forum for such a discussion.
The concept of gift is hardly novel. But I will
not argue about a word, but only about the thing
itself. Did you give something in exchange for
your being? Did you trade something for the
language and culture you received? What would you
call something you received without exchange?
Whatever you call it, I am willing to call it.
But men have most commonly called it a "gift."
>I will, however, make two comments on your interpretation of Mises.
>
>1. Regarding the "method of imaginary
>constructions," there is no real puzzle unless
>you are looking for something more profound than
>Mises intends. I am sure that you will agree
>that to define anything, we must imagine the
>thing without one or more of the attributes that we employ in our definition.
You are treating Imaginary Constructions merely
as abstractions from reality. In an abstraction,
we "drop out" those portions of the reality that
we feel do not contribute to the analysis of some
phenomenon. Such analysis is useful, because one
can inspect what is left out and what remains,
and hence make a judgment as to the relevance of
the choice of what to leave in and what to leave
out. But that is not how Mises defines an
Imaginary Construction; for Mises, all of reality
drops out in favor of "praxeological"
assumptions, assumptions which need not be,
indeed cannot be, tested by reality or any empirical method.
"The use of imaginary constructions
to which nothing corresponds in reality is an indispensable tool of
thinking. (201)"
"In designing such an imaginary
construction the economist is not concerned with the question of whether or not
it depicts the conditions of reality which he
wants to analyze. Nor does he bother
about the question of whether or not such a
system as his imaginary construction
posits could be conceived as really existent and in operation. Even imaginary
constructions which are inconceivable, self-contradictory, or unrealizable can
render useful, even indispensable services in the comprehension of reality,
provided the economist knows how to use them properly. (236)"
To do what Mises wants to do, there are
established methods within philosophy and
science: the reductio ad absurdum, the thought
experiment, abstraction, analogy, and so forth.
But all of these retain at least an analogic or
metaphoric connection with all aspects of
reality, and a real connection with at least one
aspect of reality. Thus, for example, Einstein's
riding a light wave is not something that can be
done, but neither is it an imaginary
construction, to which "nothing corresponds in
reality." The light wave is real enough, and
"riding it" can be imagined, if we discard human
limitations. Mises may have had in mind something
like a thought experiment, but in departing from
the norms of such experiments he looses himself
from the surly bonds of reason.
>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.
Action cannot be analyses deductively; human
action can only be analyzed by looking at human
actions. Mises attempts to deduce all his
theories from what he calls "the logical
structure of the human mind" as perceived by
praxeology. But how can one perceive the
structure of the human mind without inducing it
from human actions? The whole thing turns out to
be circular. The purely deductive method is
simply pre-scientific; it posits dogmas in place of real observations.
>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. The
>significance of the procedure lies with how one
>comes to define economic interaction, an issue
>that is too complex to get into here.
>
>2. Regarding your interpretation of Mises's use
>of the terms "contractual" and "hegemonic" to
>refer to "social relations" as a basis for
>constructing a "theory of society" (your
>language), you seem to be taking his terms out
>of context. You apparently want his terms to
>refer to what you have in mind when you use the
>words "social relations" and "society." However,
>you will see upon closer examination that he
>uses these terms to refer to types of cooperation.
Again, I won't argue about words, but only about
the things themselves. I am quite willing to
substitute the term "types of cooperation"
between persons for the term "social relations."
So then, the terms contractual and hegemonic do
not exhaust the types of cooperation, as an
examination of one's one cooperative relations will show.
>So while his goal is to build a theory of
>cooperation, your goal appears to be to build a
>much broader or deeper theory. Do you think it
>wise to fault a writer for writing about a
>subject that is different from the one with
>which you are concerned? (I think that Mises
>does write elsewhere about the subject you seem
>concerned with. I would elaborate on this but I
>prefer that you first state independently,
>without reference to Mises or anyone else, the
>issues that you think one should deal with.)
>
>Permit me to end with a suggestion in the form
>of a question. If you do not believe that you
>are a Mises scholar, then don't you think it
>inappropriate to include a criticism of Mises's
>work in your writings about other subjects?
I don't think critiques of a thinker are limited
to devotees of that thinker; other forms of
expertise may be brought to bear. However, there
is one sense in which I agree with you. I believe
that in reading any text, no matter how strange,
one needs to read it with a "willing suspension
of disbelief," rather in the way one watches a
play, ignoring that the actors aren't who they
pretend to be. Only then can one really grasp
what an author has to say, and only then can one
begin one's critique. I started out as a
supporter of all the things that Mises would have
us believe. And then I actually read Human
Action. The willing suspension of disbelief
became an overwhelming effort; there were just
too many contradictions to what is known from
psychology, sociology, anthropology and too many
violations of philosophic and scientific
methodology. The Imaginary Construction is merely one of them.
John C. Medaille
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