John, the materials in the history of economic thought, like Mises's   
Human Action, have been written by human beings with goals and with   
views about ways of achieving them. They are not the consequence of the   
random typings of an infinite number of child-like monkeys. As I see it,   
there is no way to "understand" these materials without trying to   
understand those goals and views.  
  
In my view, the foundation of Mises's Human Action is his definition of   
economics. Here is his introductory paragraph:  
  
"Economics is the youngest of all sciences. In the last two hundred   
years, it is true, many new sciences have emerged from the disciplines   
familiar to the ancient Greeks. However, what happened here was merely   
that parts of knowledge which had already found their place in the   
complex of the old system of learning now became autonomous. The field   
of study was more nicely subdivided and treated with new methods;   
hitherto unnoticed provinces were discovered in it, and people began to   
see things from aspects different from those of their precursors. The   
field itself was not expanded. But economics opened to human science a   
domain previously inaccessible and never thought of. The discovery of a   
regularity in the sequence and interdependence of market phenomena went   
beyond the limits of the traditional system of learning. It conveyed   
knowledge which could be regarded neither as logic, mathematics,   
psychology, physics, nor biology."  
  
You have decided to criticize Mises but you are unwilling to discuss his   
definition of economics. So I must return to my original thesis that you   
deliberately aimed to bash Mises. At this stage, I must take this thesis   
as demonstrated by your unwillingness to approach Mises's writings about   
the a priori, the logical structure of the human mind, etc. in the only   
way that could enable you to understand them.  
  
In my view, a failure to approach the work of Mises -- or of any other   
economist, for that matter -- by trying to understand the goals and   
perceived means of the writer -- represents an approach to the history   
of economic thought that has no reasonable defense.  
  
You might learn something about what I regard as the proper way to   
approach Mises's work by reading Bruce Caldwell's BEYOND POSITIVE   
ECONOMICS, although, as I argued many years ago, I do not regard this   
book as having successfully achieved its goal.  
  
Pat Gunning