Let me also take the privilege of dealing with just one issue below John.
John C.Medaille wrote:
>> This is problematic to say the least, and does not accord with the
way humans really are. If "meaning" is only the "meaning of
individuals," than language would be impossible, since communication
depends on shared meanings; it would be miraculous if there was enough
overlap in individually determined meanings to form a language. Mises
has the social structure derived from the way we think about it, when in
truth the way we think about it is derived from the social structure. We
get our cues about what things mean from others; this is simply a matter
of fact, for you, for me, for anybody. It is not that we don't then
internalize and modify those meanings, but the starting place is not in
the individual but in the social milieu in which he finds himself. The
individual always finds himself already situated in a social setting
from which he derives meaning, and this setting must be the starting
place for meaning. This is the issue that Hayek was addressing, though
incompletely. <<
Again, I think you have misread/misunderstood Mises.
I wrote:
"Because, he argues, only individuals can attribute meaning to actions,
any analysis of action, including collective action, must begin *but not
end* with the meaning that individuals ascribe to them."
I don't think this idea is in contradiction with the idea of shared
meanings. In fact, my earlier post quoted Mises talking about how
individuals do not create "ideas and standards of value" but that we
borrow them from others. That all meanings are ultimately the meanings
of individuals doesn't mean that we don't have shared ones by virtue of
us being in the same social setting. In fact, Mises is very explicit in
*Nation, State, and Economy* about this issue:
"Community of language is at first the consequence of an ethnic or
social community; independently of its origin, however, it itself now
becomes a new bond that creates definite social relations. In learning
the language, the child absorbs a way of thinking and of expressing his
thoughts that is pre-determined by the language, and so he receives a
stamp that he can scarcely remove from his life. The language opens up
the way for a person of exchanging thoughts with all those who use it;
he can influence them and receive influence from them." (p. 13 of the
NYU Press edition)
This was written decades before *Human Action*.
>> Indeed, this is the situation of man generally; each of as are
called into being by a relationship between our parents, a relationship
in which we have no part and no choice; we do not choose to have English
as our mother tongue, America as our nation of origin, or Smith as our
family name. Within this original community of the family, we learn all
our meanings and all our norms; we may (and likely will) reject or
modify those norms, but even the rejection will be in the context of the
received meanings. We are always appealing to social norms because that
is the only court of appeal. Now, I do not think that any of this can be
controverted; nor do I think that it can be reconciled with
"methodological individualism." <<
See above. Mises would have agreed with everything in your paragraph
above, yet he was a staunch methodological individualist. Hence we are
left with at least three possible explanatory hypotheses:
1. Mises wasn't really serious about all that shared meaning stuff.
2. Mises misunderstood what methodological individualism meant.
3. You misunderstand what methodological individualism means.
Steve Horwitz
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