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