Not would they, but would they attempt to. I was too general. Say this person is aware of the amount in his bank, and writes a bounced check deliberately. Or that this person is allergic to a given food, but decides to try it anyways. That analogy can be applied to macroeconomics, I imagine. History shows deficit spending doesn't help all that much, yet here we are. So can you predict arbitrary decision making or measure how arbitrary decisions are in the market by trying to explain the decision making process logically?
I thnk you are confusing understanding praxeology on the one hand with 'applying' praxeological insights to the real world by fusing it with thymology and other contingent considerations, such as the arrangement of objects in the environment etc. on the other.
Your problem is not with the "applicability of the austrian method," but with anything that cites revelation through human action (e.g. experimental psychology) as there is no way to absolutely determine via observation that action is conscious.
But without application, praxeology is useless.
Learn what thymology is and your problem is solved.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
I think many people also underestimate the degree to which animal action is purposive and rational (in the Austrian sense). Animals are stupid, but they are not clockwork machines or computers running on pre-programmed instincts.
To give an example I heard from John Searle at a Wittgenstein conference, when my dog thinks someone is at the door it's the same thing as me thinking someone is at the door.
“Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.” - Benito Mussolini"Toute nation a le gouvernemente qu'il mérite." - Joseph de Maistre
I think another example can help.
Giant_Joe: 2nd Paragraph of Human Action: Conscious or purposeful behavior is in sharp contrast to unconscious behavior, i.e., the reflexes and the involuntary responses of the body's cells and nerves to stimuli. People are sometimes prepared to believe that the boundaries between conscious behavior and the involuntary reaction of the forces operating within man's body are more or less indefinite. This is correct only as far as it is sometimes not easy to establish whether concrete behavior is to be considered voluntary or involuntary. But the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness is nonetheless sharp and can be clearly determined. From here: http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp What you are describing is not unconcious behaviour, but habitual behaviour.
2nd Paragraph of Human Action:
Conscious or purposeful behavior is in sharp contrast to unconscious behavior, i.e., the reflexes and the involuntary responses of the body's cells and nerves to stimuli. People are sometimes prepared to believe that the boundaries between conscious behavior and the involuntary reaction of the forces operating within man's body are more or less indefinite. This is correct only as far as it is sometimes not easy to establish whether concrete behavior is to be considered voluntary or involuntary. But the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness is nonetheless sharp and can be clearly determined.
From here: http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
What you are describing is not unconcious behaviour, but habitual behaviour.
Bingo! Saved me the trouble.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
Take for instance the fact that many people are given their tastes and opinions by forces like (marketing, propaganda, entertainment, ect). People are persuaded into certain behavioral patterns. However this does not contradict praxeology as those people are consciously making the decision to engage in that behavior by the very fact of their action. This action is rational in the sense that their applying purposeful means to achieve ends. The fact that their action is "artificial" in the sense of being manufactured does not concern praxeology. Also the fact that these people don't fully think critically about their motivations is the place for psychology.
So if a hypnotizer made everyone to destroy their personal belongings that would be the most economical course of action?
Given their value judgments and ideas about means/ends frameworks, yes. There is no extrapersonal way to judge the 'efficiency' of economic action.
Given their value judgments and ideas about means/ends frameworks, yes.
Yes, theirs. Pfffffffff
the origin of a value judgment is irrelevant to its role as a value judgment. Economics is a descriptive science, not a normative one.
Seems more like irrelevant nonsense to me they way you describe it.
You remind me of the Millian liberals who insist that someone's choice is not free because he has adopted his methods from those presented by society.
There is no 'authentic' person; only the real, bodily, acting person.
Liberté:methods from those presented by society.
Sometimes I wonder whether the general impression by other individuals (society? culture? et al) matters the most when applying appraisal to the actor, in extension being all there is for the basis of "rightness" or "wrongness" when it comes to acting within a community. In that mode of thought, anarchism would eventually develop wherever the cultural incentive for its establishment was greatest. Blatantly statist politicians have a better time getting elected in cultures that are prone to providing approval to collectivism and tradition, ala Greece's Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, or the U.K.'s Labour Party. The greatest example would be the completely free democratic election of the Nazi's into power.
I'm just saying that individuals' reasoning is polluted by cultural values that may be irrespective of logical fallacy. So their value judgements are, in their expression, fundamentally flawed. And thus appraisals are flawed. Etc
It's analogous to economic action. It was culturally-significant for large U.S. corporations to overreach with superfluous amounts of credit and to leverage high levels of risk in the "game", in pursuit of more profit. The outcome might be different in a society that has different appraisals of economic action's consequences. But our State feels it necessary to facilitate this form of unstable State-sponsored capitalism, and the Americans enabled it all - even if they weren't actually conscious of the implications of buying credit from this or that bank, or acquiring loans through what would become a risk-laden institution.
Read it from Theory & History and its more epistemological basis, but not practical information as to how to determine whether observed human behaviour is itself an action or part of some other action, in order to understand whether praxeological implications can be aplied to it.
"but not practical information..." I don't think you're not going to find that. This stuff is all rationally deduced. And what's "practical" mean?
Practical as in the application of the praxeological theoretical framework to actual human behaviour. IE the problems like the walking example and how praxeology applies to it.
I think your problem was "what's the difference between observed behaviour and human action?"
Can we define the terms "observed behaviour" and "human action"? I think that would be a good start.
Behaviour as any physical activity of life forms.
Human action as an attempt to change a perceived change of affairst to an imagined better one.
Since AE is all about the latter and strictly such, emphasizing its difference from any generic behaviour, making empiric difference between the two is of utmost difference for implications AE to apply to real life.
nandnor,
You're misaggregating actions in your analysis.
nandnor, You're misaggregating actions in your analysis.
And where is the theory that describes applicability of praxeology on actual behaviour, human or otherwise, and the determination of praxeological units(actions) in time domain and in their relation to property. All we hear from Mises on this is assertive claims with no backing.
Axioms are taken on faith.
All we hear from Mises on this is assertive claims with no backing.
How does one "prove" that humans act, or even exhibit behaviour?
Right, the closest 'proof' we have of this are empirical observations.
Yeah, observations. But how to tell the difference between behaviour and action, and the properties of any specific action. Where is the theory of this? Rothbard only says that its a general observation that man makes of himself that he acts(the aristotelean foundation of action). But that does not tell us how to determine this in other conditions.
I don't see the problem. perhaps illustrate it?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
The walking example earlier in the thread..
Yeah, still not seeing any problem
I walk to to break room to get a cup of coffee. You're right, I don't think about my steps on the way there, my action is at this moment "get a cup of coffee". Usually it plays out that way, but sometimes while taking one of my steps on the way, someone calls out to me, or I see someone in their cube that reminds me of something, so I stop to do something else. The step "that I didn't take", proves that really each step along the way was an action.
I think you're grappling with the general "fractal problem" which can admittedly get very frustrating, e.g. "How long is a coastline", and "If you look close enough, you cant tell when my finger ends and the air around it begins".
HTH, John
nandnor: cporter:nandnor, You're misaggregating actions in your analysis.How? And where is the theory that describes applicability of praxeology on actual behaviour, human or otherwise, and the determination of praxeological units(actions) in time domain and in their relation to property. All we hear from Mises on this is assertive claims with no backing.
cporter:nandnor, You're misaggregating actions in your analysis.
You seem to want to aggregate smaller decisions into a larger one for convenience, but then speak as though the aggregated sum is now the smallest possible unit of action, which is not true.
While it is certainly convenient to think of "taking a walk" instead of "step one", "step two", etc. you can't then wave away consideration of those steps simply because you've decided to label a series of actions as "taking a walk". You can only aggregate the actions into a larger whole if the smaller parts don't matter for the purposes of your discussion. They need not be discussed in such a case, but they are still there. If, however, your discussion becomes one where the individual steps actually matter then they must be considered as actions in their own right.
For example, if I am comparing preferences of NY City residents for taking a walk or riding a bike, then consideration of each step is unnecessary. If I then look at whether those who walk try to avoid pavers with grates in them, I can't just say they're taking "a walk", which was an action, but not "taking steps", so they will simply blindly head toward their destination with little or no regard for their route.
As for your questions on time, Time and Praxeology from Human Action may fit what you're looking for.
cporter
Mereology is wonderful.