Pat Gunning wrote:  
>John Medaille is one of the latter. He does not   
>understand what Mises has in mind when Mises   
>posits that the distinctly human mind has a   
>logical structure, as per one his earlier posts   
>on this list directed at me. If the distinctly   
>human being does not have a mind with a logical structure,  
  
  
I am fairly certain that I never said that the   
human mind does not have a logical structure; I   
am positive that I said that structure is not as   
Mises depicts it. But the real problem is not   
Mises's conclusions, but his method. If one is   
going to write on the structure of the human   
mind, then doesn't write "A Treatise on   
Economics" but a treatise on psychology, or   
possibly linguistics. There is absolutely nothing   
in the training of an economist which gives him   
or her license to declaim on these matters. Mises   
proposes only a series of pontifications without   
logical demonstration; he merely assumes what he   
should prove, and so he uses the methods of   
ideology rather than science. To the degree that   
economics is "self-contained," providing its own   
premises rather than deriving them from higher   
sciences, then it must be a merely circular   
ideology rather than a science. Neither   
empiricism nor mathematics is sufficient to make   
a study scientific, but rather its connection   
with its neighbors in the scientific hierarchy.  
  
>  Mises must be wrong in thinking that an   
> argument for or against a government policy can   
> can be evaluated on the basis of its logical structure.  
  
That's an unjustified leap of logic. While policy   
that deals with humans must be in accord with   
human nature, that nature admits of an infinite   
choice of policies. So while any policy must be   
first evaluated in those terms, such an   
evaluation does not exhaust the analysis.  
  
>  From this standpoint, it is easy for John to   
> dismiss Mises as merely another proponent of a   
> free market ideology. He should be appreciated,   
> in my view, as a value-neutral evaluator of   
> arguments favoring market intervention, but that is another story.  
  
Human nature cannot be divorced from human   
values. And this is particularly true of   
economics, the science of valuations. The opinion   
of D. McCloskey is relevant here; you can simply   
substitute "praxeology" for the "scientific method":  
  
"Modernism promises knowledge free from doubt,   
metaphysics, morals, and personal conviction;   
what it delivers merely renames as Scientific   
Method the scientist's and especially the   
economic scientist's metaphysics, morals, and   
personal convictions. It cannot, and should not,   
deliver what it promises. Scientific knowledge is   
no different from other personal knowledge.   
Trying to make it different, instead of simply   
better, is the death of science. "  
  
  
John C. Medaille