Pat Gunning wrote: >John Medaille wrote: >> >>If you merely mean that things can in general >>be analyzed with logic, then this is true but >>only trivially true, and we hardly needed >>praxeology to tell us this. But in any actual >>analysis of action, we run into three sets of problems. > > >This is not what I mean. When Mises writes of >the logical structure of the human mind, he >means something different -- something that you >have not yet understood. The structure he has in >mind is a structure based on the assumption that >individuals act, as he defines action. >Apparently, I am not able to persuade you that you have misunderstood him. Perhaps, but you could persuade me if only you would present some contrary evidence. But instead you say: >You continue to lift quotes from his text to >support your points and I must continue to point >out that there is a deeper meaning to the text >quotes than you have so far acknowledged. Fine. Where can I find these "deeper meanings" if not in the text? And if it is in the text, can you, as a Misean scholar, show me where? >As I said before, I do not which to engage you >in a philosophical discussion on the HES list. I >doubt that the list has the stomach for a >philosophical debate in which I largely try to >play the role of Mises. I only wish to point out >that you have not understood Mises well enough >to justify your remarks about him, which I >described in my initial post on bashing Mises. >Or, since "pointing out" requires communication >which does not seem to be occurring between us, >perhaps it is enough for me to simply express my opinion on this matter. I do think that it is important, as a matter of history, to get Mises right. Mises, far from being "heterodox," represents, in my opinion, the purest form of neoclassical orthodoxy, sort of an orthodoxy on steroids. After all, the man who accused his Mount Pellerian Society colleagues of being "a bunch of socialists" deserves some points for purity, if not for coherence. To understand Mises is to understand more than Mises; it is to understand more than Mises; it is to understand a whole set of justifications and rationalizations that are elsewhere implicit in neoclassicism but in Mises are explicit. For this, Mises deserves credit. As far as human actions go, it is clear that Mises identifies them with ratiocination. If there is something in HA that modifies or contradicts this, I am more than willing to read it. But you have presented nothing; your "arguments" take the form of a mere ad hominem ("you just don't understand!") That may be true, but it is hardly persuasive. Show me where my opinions are contradicted by the text. Human actions cannot be reduced to praxeology, and this is easy to confirm. Call up the marketing department of any large firm (whose sole reason for being is to move people to the action of buying) and ask them how many praxeologists and how many psychologists they hire. In fact, they hire the best psychologists , sociologists, artists, and musicians and spend not a nickel on praxeology. Or just turn on the TV and do a critical analysis of any commercial. Clearly, they do not want people to think, but to stop thinking. >I can readily understand why you think that >Mises scholars, or perhaps only me, operate on >faith. If I have correctly interpreted your >earlier posts to the list, you tend to see values everywhere in economics. This is true. However, I don't think it much of a stretch to say that economics, the science of valuations, has something to do with values. In fact, the real challenge is trying to ensure that it has something to do with science. John C. Medaille