Praxeology: The Austrian Method | Hans-Hermann Hoppe

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2009
  • Presented by Hans-Hermann Hoppe at the 2009 Mises University. Recorded 27 July 2009 at the Ludwig von Mises Institute; Auburn, Alabama.

ความคิดเห็น • 79

  • @JohnVandivier
    @JohnVandivier 10 ปีที่แล้ว +31

    This bro is wicked smart.

  • @totustuus11
    @totustuus11 14 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    This was my favorite lecture of the week at Mises U. Hoppe is an amazing intellectual, astute and well-spoken. He and Walter Block have had a profound effect on the way I think about society, exchange, research, etc. As a repentant sociologist, I had to reevaluate my very approach to life, casting off the "fetters of iron" of empiricism and mulling over the praxeology of Mises and the "synthetic a priori" propositions of Kant. It was mentally revolutionary, and I'm still in recovery.

  • @lastmanstanding5423
    @lastmanstanding5423 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    what a lecture...!
    I'll have to come back and listen to it again...

  • @ohad157
    @ohad157 6 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    This lecture should be given to every econ student. Blow my mind!

  • @hhiippiittyy
    @hhiippiittyy 11 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Dear sir I am so very encouraged to find a Libertarian who appreciates the scientific method. You may be lonely on planet youtube but best wishes.

  • @EraserFS
    @EraserFS 9 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    His argument on the implicit constancy assumption in empirical economies is true.
    All observable economic data is just the result of human action and every action itself was acted within the particular circumstances every acting human was confronted with. And since economy is defined as the interactions between every economically acting human being, every single action influences the particular circumstances of other actors. Thus if one states scientific discovery from economic data he needs to assume constancy of the actors and their acts that resulted into this data, which is pretty obvious bullshit by definition of the dynamic economic process.
    Short: Empirical economics assumes general natural law in human acting that every self-reflecting human being can identify as not true.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    20:37:
    "A straight line is the shortest distance between 2 points"
    From a mathematical point of view, this is generally only true in certain (euclidean) spaces, but not all ones.
    And in reality, this is also not always true, because this hypothesis became refuted by experiments supporting the theory of general relativity, which states that the shortest distance between 2 points is a geodesic, not necessarily a line.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    It is even physically impossible to verify distances distances arbitrarily precise, because at last at the plank scale, the heisenberg uncertainty principle kicks in, meaning that if your object must not move more than a certain momentum(dp < constant) in order to be measured, than its location cannot also be measured with arbitrarily precise(dx < constant). Thus, one can't even measure exact lenght or width which would be required to check for straight lines/points in reality.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    >Just because they can't be measured, on an exact
    >scale, does not mean they don't exist.
    by existing as a real thing, I mean it exists as a physical thing which could be perceived sensationally.
    If one has a transcendental a priori concept of a straight line in ones mind, then it actually does exist in ones mind, but not necessarily as a physical sensational thing.
    So it also depends how you define the word "to exist", maybe I was a bit unclear on that.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    You're right, I was wrong too. As a result of the beat interference of both light waves, you'll get ~544nm yellowy-green colored and ~5930nm infra-red light waves.
    One will get a varying degree of the original 2 colors green and yellow to the yellowy-green and infra-red ones, due to a varying degree of partial beat interferences due to different materials(polarization etc).

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    If you define: green := reflects light around 520nm
    and yellow := reflects light around 570nm, than an object actually CAN be green and yellow all around at the same time.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Especially in economics, one needs to perceive space, time and causality to make mathematical models(or rather to test them against the perceptions), so I think that economic statements are at least partially transcendental - and I agree with the author that there is at least a third category of statements besides purely analytical or empirical ones(even though his proof is a little fishy), namely the Kantian transcendental category.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    You're right, I screwed up the example and it is not clear what I actually meant. Here's another example:
    if person A is part of the friends of person B
    and person B is part of the friends of person C,
    then person A is not necessarily part of the friends of person C.

  • @cpx86
    @cpx86 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    Not quite. As I understand it, quantum physics posits that a particle's position has a probability field. That is, it's position can never be exactly known, only the probability of it's existence in a given space.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    >At ant given moment in time, a set of electrons can
    >be lined up just so as to produce a straight line.
    If that would actually be possible, then it would be a straight alignment of electrons, and not an actual straight line. the concept of a straight line could be perceived by your mind(compared against) when it receives the sensation of a straight alignment of electrons.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    3)
    21:23
    > "Whichever object is green all over cannot be
    > yellow all over at the same time"
    > It strikes me that this says something about
    > the real world.
    One actually need a definition of what "green" and "yellow" mean and their interactions in order to make implications to the real world from this statement, so the statement doesn't work all alone without further premises.

  • @IvanTheHeathen
    @IvanTheHeathen 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @zsignal Yes, I realize that, but that's not the point. From the standpoint of someone who believes he's the king of Spain the statement "You are the king of Spain" is correct, but that doesn't mean he really IS the king of Spain. I'm asking about who is correct. As for your other comment: yes, Hoppe's epistemological points are Kantian. However, I think Kant would say the example I gave is synthetic because Kant believed we have an a priori intuition of space, which that statement presupposes.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    but due to quantum theory, all physical things don't have exact precise borders, every particle has a certain extend as it is present not only in 1 place at the same time. Because of this, you can't even have exactly straight line-shaped things.

  • @zsignal
    @zsignal 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @IvanTheHeathen
    From the standpoint of logical positivism, you are correct, it would be considered analytic, not synthetic.

  • @Nielsio
    @Nielsio 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    Our theories should be based in theory. Seems rather appropriate don't you think?

  • @JamesRRedford
    @JamesRRedford 14 ปีที่แล้ว

    That's not what quantum mechanics states. You're thinking of quantum superposition, which is a statistical uncertainty as to what states a particle can occupy. All possible states are realized in the multiverse, but each state in its own universe. For more on this, see David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997). Prof. Deutsch is the inventor of the quantum computer, being the first person to mathematically describe the workings of such a device.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    To make economic statements, 1 should make mathematical models translatable to and falsifiable by reality, and not mere single hypothesises testing, I agree with the author on that. The mathematics of these models themselves are purely analytic, even though one needs to interpret the results of the model in the context of reality.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    person B always just means the person B, and not a group.
    if _person A_ (is part of the friends of) _person B_
    and _person B_ (is part of the friends of) _person C_,
    then _person A_ (is part of the friends of) _person C_ or not _person A_ (is part of the friends of) _person C_.
    (is part of the friends of) is an intransitive relation between 2 elements of the same type _person_.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    >There is more to life than meets the eye.
    I think this is true. There are all kinds of abstract structural and informational concepts in reality, even though these concepts do not physically exist.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    You are right that a geodesic refers to the shortest path between 2 points on a surface.
    According to general relativity, space-time is also a surface(of a higher dimensional space-time) that can be curved(gravitational field) itself under the influence of mass-energy, so the overall shortest distance between 2 points in space-time is a geodesic too and not a line(if some mass-energy is actually present).
    And what do you mean by "behavioral patterns of quantum particles"?

  • @echatav
    @echatav 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @synestheticmonotony We're talking about two different statements here. The first is that in Euclidean geometry some properties hold, such as the shortest distance between two points is a line. The second is that Euclidean geometry describes reality. The first is an a priori statement, not empirical at all. The second is an empirical statement, not a priori at all. That Euclidean geometry doesn't actually describe the real world is besides the point. You're right, we may substitute Minkowski.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    2)
    20:37
    > "A straight line is the shortest distance between 2 points"
    this is true in some mathematical spaces, but this is not a scientific hypothesis, because it isn't scientific, because neither of both terms "straight line" and "point" are real world objects: they are transcendental concepts: those are required to grasp the real world in the first place, even though they themselves are imaginary and not part of the real world.

  • @SirJamestheIII
    @SirJamestheIII 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @05121784 your comment has more to do with Rand being wrong in her methodology rather than Hoppe not being Kantian influenced. Hoppe was a student of Jurgen Habermas who resonated strongly with neo-kantian epistemology. Hoppe was a marxist then, but was converted to capitalism by Friedman, but he still held strongly to the methodology taught by Habermas. He found Mises and he was then satisfied.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    I don't claim that person B both represents a person and a group. All I claim about person B is that person B has friends

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    not taking into account effects on semi-transparent or more complex materials.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    4)
    21:56
    > "If A is part of B, and B is part of C,
    > than A is part of C also"
    > A real statement about real things
    This is true for transitive relations, but not every relation is transitive. There are counterexamples in both math and real world:
    if person A is part of the group of frinds of person B and person B is part of the group of friends of person C, than person A is not necessarily part of the group of friends of C.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    There are real things that have an approximated shape of a point or a straight line, but the concepts themselves don't exist as real things.
    Acording to Immanuel Kant, space is a category that must be known a priori to any sensation in order to perceive it spatially. This category is neither sensational nor purely analytic(because it's required to grasp some sensations), so it builds a bridge between the 2 - transcendental.
    And I guess a straight line and a point are subcategories of space.

  • @echatav
    @echatav 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @synestheticmonotony I'm not sure I understand this question or your earlier question about curves or vectors. Minkowski provided a mathematical formalism for Einstein's special theory of relativity. His famous quote is "Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." Consult wikipedia for the precise details about it.

  • @PhilosopherRex
    @PhilosopherRex 14 ปีที่แล้ว

    The statements he gives as examples he claims are proof of the error of the Logical Positivists are in fact definitions. And it is true that any definition is as good as another - but only when they are first made! We as humans don't determine the validity of definitions, Nature and the market interaction does. This is called natural selection. The successful definition maintains itself in the lexicon by right of survival, not reason, nor empirical verification. Logical Positivism is correct.

  • @IvanTheHeathen
    @IvanTheHeathen 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    Though I am sympathetic to Hoppe's overall point, I consider some of the examples he gives of statements that are true a priori (require no experience/testing) and are synthetic (describe the real world) to be weak and improper. Take, for example, "No object can be both completely red and completely blue at the same time." Though this may describe objects in the real world, that does not make the statement synthetic. Is not the truth of that statement implied in the definition of "completely"?

  • @zsignal
    @zsignal 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    @IvanTheHeathen
    From reading Hoppe's "Economic Science and the Austrian Method," it seems his praxeological method is highly influenced by Kant. From a Kantian perspective, synthetic a priori propositions are where the predicate concept is not contained in the subject concept. According Kant, it would be neither synthetic or analytic.
    The definition of "describes the real world" is more similar to Quinne's definition in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism."

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    If you have as yet to perceive a certain John Smith in Cincinnati, it does not posit that he does exist physically either.

  • @echatav
    @echatav 13 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    @synestheticmonotony Hi, this is probably an inappropriate place to get into an extended discussion of physics.

  • @ChrisRhenfeldt
    @ChrisRhenfeldt 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    this presentation is just illuminating
    BRAVO

  • @afaultytoaster
    @afaultytoaster 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    @jaeLAX23 how did you come by this information? did you arrive at it by a priori reasoning or by empiricism?

  • @jaeLAX23
    @jaeLAX23 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    @afaultytoaster Why do you feel you can?
    Matter has both particle & wave-like properties, but electrons have more wave-like character than particle character which allow electrons to behave this way. You and I cannot be in two places at once.

  • @AFRIKTODAY
    @AFRIKTODAY 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    Empirical evidences need constants! Are Human rational individual constants? You cannot calculate or build a rational hypothesis on an ever changing, subjective person. That was quite evident until the 50s. I believe we should return to that tradition in the field of economics.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    I agree with everything the guy in the video said in the beginning and I even arrive to the same conclusions at the end, but I disagree with most thing he stated in the middle of the video.
    There are several logical and definitional problems. I'll try to sum them up.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    > And nonetheless we have recognized something
    > that is true, about a real phenomena.
    This claimed real phenomena is actually false, because a regular object, which is made out of bosons(if you strip all electrons), can be at the same location than some other one(within the constraints of the uncertainty principle). So, this actually is a scientific hypothesis which actually got falsified by experiments, namely by the existences and properties of lasers, super conductivity and super fluidity.

  • @ISchmelzer
    @ISchmelzer 12 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I appreciate HHH very much as an anarchist. Unfortunately, when he starts to talk about Popper, he is almost completely wrong.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    I'm a little unhappy with your definition of the term "analytical statement" that states that analytical statements are just definitions.
    While I agree that every analytical statement depends on definitions, which are essential, they may also be statements derived from definitions.

  • @Leoninmiami
    @Leoninmiami 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    WOW he is tackling perhaps the toughest question around. Does objective knowledge exist? Necessarily, if one answers no to this question, you destroy all existence. Think about it...for a while. Similar to the classic, "if a tree falls in the middle of a forest". Question, For those subjectivists or positivists ... I'll ask this ... Does human life require sustenance?

  • @JohnSmith-il9db
    @JohnSmith-il9db 11 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    What IS relevant is that his statement can be reduced to a tautology. That is, it is, indeed, an axiomatic statement, and doesn't say anything more about the world than the statement All bachelors are male. Same thing with "no two straight lines can enclose a space" - this is a statement which can be reduced to a mathematical proof. It's, in his terms, "definitional"

  • @SpockisGreat
    @SpockisGreat 14 ปีที่แล้ว

    @echatav thank you, I was about to say the exact same thing but you said it better.

  • @jaeLAX23
    @jaeLAX23 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    @afaultytoaster Anyone who's taken at the very least a serious high school physics class knows this. It's also in your 2nd semester college physics course ;D

  • @WeirdestGuy29
    @WeirdestGuy29 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    If, by "empirical evidence" you mean things like "utiles" which attempt to give precise, quantitative values to things... the flaws in such empiricism are abounds. Preferences and values, in reality, are ordinal in nature. You don't want object X 6.25 more utiles than object Y and 24.6 utiles more than object Z, etc. You like X, Y and Z inordinate to each other.
    It isn't about "logic" so much as it's about unpredictable human action. Empiricism always fails to account for praxeology.

  • @PhilosopherRex
    @PhilosopherRex 14 ปีที่แล้ว

    his attack on the logical positivists isn't justified by his examples, in which he states relations between things that are properties of the objects/things. So when he says no thing can be in two places at once - it is built into the 'definition' of any single thing that it resides on one place. That is why they are self-evident. They are not empirical statements. All of his examples are like this.

  • @ISchmelzer
    @ISchmelzer 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    For a description of his errors see ilja-schmelzer.de/papers/againstCertainty.pdf

  • @dodofrog9
    @dodofrog9 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    Such as?

  • @05121784
    @05121784 13 ปีที่แล้ว

    Absolutely nothing about Hoppe's presentation can be attributed to Kant. Precisely the opposite. Hoppe merely illustrates that we are able acquire knowledge through reasoning. Kant is the evil opponent of reasoning. Ayn Rand has written beautifully to inform.

  • @Deelystaniel
    @Deelystaniel 11 ปีที่แล้ว

    2. I pressed enter too quickly. It might be sensible to uphold the statements but that is only so through a process of induction.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    1)
    20:08
    > "No 2 objects can occupy the same place."
    > I would claim this says something about
    > the real world; it is not just a definition.
    true
    > Nonetheless, is this a hypothesis? What strikes me,
    > this is suretainly not a hypothesis.
    actually, it is, and a false one on top of that.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    Chances are that you get wrong results(like the keynesian), than your model doesn't describe reality well enough or your input data is wrong, but that's NEVER the fault of mathematics. In the case of the keynesians, I think they screwed up their models and neglected necessary perceptions.

  • @afaultytoaster
    @afaultytoaster 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    @jaeLAX23 that's right, empiricism

  • @93msinclair
    @93msinclair 13 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    @CytherLynx Keynsian economics is not economics at all.

  • @christophermurray9118
    @christophermurray9118 11 ปีที่แล้ว

    yes but in the realm of physics, which we can actually observe with our eyes, we have to assume it is true.

  • @afaultytoaster
    @afaultytoaster 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    why do austrians feel they are qualified to make pronouncements about areas of academia far outside their own expertise? 20:00 he says that matter can't be in two places at once. the double-slit experiment proves him wrong.

  • @JohnSmith-il9db
    @JohnSmith-il9db 11 ปีที่แล้ว

    Well, someone had to say it. Especially, since everyone seems to forget Marx said it first. ;-)
    Good day to you, sir.

  • @echatav
    @echatav 14 ปีที่แล้ว

    I do not understand his examples. For instance, he refers to a number of statements about Euclidean geometry as being about the real world and being obviously true. They are true statements in Euclidean geometry. But, that Euclidean geometry describes reality is still an empirical statement, no? In fact, it's false! Locally, spacetime is described by flat Minkowski geometry, and globally it's curved!

  • @AFRIKTODAY
    @AFRIKTODAY 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    I disagree respectfully! To begin with, what is a science? And what is a scientific method? It is impossible to "test" or establish economic principles when you are dealing with subjective human actions and choices. The problems with keynesians and other schools of economics is that they tend to ignore the center point of all economic activities. That's the individual, the consumer! Understanding the individual actions are the best way to establish economics laws! That's why I love Austrians!!

  • @DunbarConfederalist
    @DunbarConfederalist 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    popperism is popular

  • @AtheistThatsATheist
    @AtheistThatsATheist 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    Following on from AFRIKTODAY, there is no such thing as utiles in Austrian economics because there are no constants in human, subjective value.
    You may have 10 apples, Today you decided to eat the first, bake the second two and then trade the rest for oranges.
    tomorrow you decided to do something else with your 10 apples(my examples) You can give your values numbers, but only an order. Its margianl value. This video watch?v=DFe-PRKud5g
    Followed by watch?v=h36Dni1ZPX0
    Should esplain it

  • @TheUnworthy
    @TheUnworthy 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    That was delicious.

  • @joeseth05
    @joeseth05 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    >Straight lines and points DO exist physically.
    I seriously don't believe this, and I can't neither prove nor disprove it.

  • @lengthyounarther
    @lengthyounarther 15 ปีที่แล้ว

    I dont have time to inform myself because I have high time preference ;)

  • @Vitringur
    @Vitringur 12 ปีที่แล้ว

    Quantum physics isn't relevant when it comes to economic decisions of individuals

  • @Deelystaniel
    @Deelystaniel 11 ปีที่แล้ว

    The assertion of the a priori nature of economics is embarrassing to a empiricist libertarian as myself. The statements made are not tautologies, the denial of which are not self-contradictory. The statements aren't necessary. They are not laws of thought but require some sense data to establish. It might be, and often is, sensible to uphold the state

  • @LeviDanielBarnes
    @LeviDanielBarnes 8 ปีที่แล้ว

    Sounds to me like praxeology is mostly about avoiding work.