I think it was built up by Lachmann and that it has something to do with Heidegger. As an educated guess I think that it is a type of economic theory based on the existentialism of Heidegger? Is this true? From what I know of AE and Existentialism I think the potential for mixture is particularly interesting -I wonder how authenticity or caring or death would affect time-preferences or something. There was definitely a little bit of existential philosophy in mises.
In the end though it becomes nihilist are there any research programs undertaken in this tradition?
Although Lachmann embraced what the others were doing, he was not really a hermeneutician in any serious sense, unless you count Weberian influences as hermeneutic. Even his later work does not explicitly mention these ideas. Check out Don Lavoie's work and that of his pupils for more information. He edited a book on "Economics and Hermenetics."
From Ch. 10 of Barry Smith's book on Austrian philosophy.
Clearly, however, Austrian economics is in the second sense of the term ‘subjectivism’ as objectivistic a discipline as any other. It holds that there are facts of economic reality B for example that there are acts of entrepreneurial perception, that value is a function of individual valuing acts that is subject to the law of marginal utility, that there are unintended consequences of human action, that time preference is positive, and so on. Austrian economists believe that economic reality is constituted out of highly complex structures of human acts and actions interacting together over time in complex ways B that it is objectively thus. They believe that there are difficulties of principle in gaining access to the detailed contents of such acts on the part of the economic theorist. And, because of the complexity of the relevant interactions (having to do, for example, with the interdependence of our separate beliefs and expectations), they believe that the given reality is -- like all psychologically-based phenomena -- subject to unforeseeable changes over time. Hence, also, they believe that there are limits to the economist’s powers to grasp this reality in theoretical terms. Economic theories may indeed influence and shape economic reality, in the sense that economic agents may have beliefs about such theories which can to some degree influence their own expectations and behaviour. But the Austrian economist does not (and if it is to retain its status as a scientific discipline cannot) maintain that economic theory in any sense ‘creates’ the economic reality to which it is directed.
Then there is a footnote at the end with a sub-quote from Lavoie:
Subjectivism in the second of our two senses has raised its head among the so-called hermeneuticists of the Austrian school. Thus the principal message of the hermeneutic philosophy that has been embraced of late by D. Lavoie and others is that the ‘problem of interpretation’ as between one culture and another or between one time and another calls for an overhaul of our familiar (‘objectivistic’) notions of truth and scientific objectivity in a way which seems to issue in a sort of cultural relativism. See, on this, the material collected in Lavoie (ed.) 1990 and the critical remarks in Steele 1987 and 1987a. Above all, one must reject Lavoie’s quite astonishing claim to the effect that: The roots of modern hermeneutics trace to precisely the elements of German philosophy in which the original Austrian school was immersed ... Hermeneutics is in my view the missing link in the modern American Austrian movement. It reconnects Austrians to their roots in the German language from which their English language training in economics had been artificially disconnected. (1986, p. 25) A similarly muddled confounding of the distinct intellectual traditions of Austria and Germany is manifest also in McCloskey 1985, p. 39.
Subjectivism in the second of our two senses has raised its head among the so-called hermeneuticists of the Austrian school. Thus the principal message of the hermeneutic philosophy that has been embraced of late by D. Lavoie and others is that the ‘problem of interpretation’ as between one culture and another or between one time and another calls for an overhaul of our familiar (‘objectivistic’) notions of truth and scientific objectivity in a way which seems to issue in a sort of cultural relativism. See, on this, the material collected in Lavoie (ed.) 1990 and the critical remarks in Steele 1987 and 1987a. Above all, one must reject Lavoie’s quite astonishing claim to the effect that:
The roots of modern hermeneutics trace to precisely the elements of German philosophy in which the original Austrian school was immersed ... Hermeneutics is in my view the missing link in the modern American Austrian movement. It reconnects Austrians to their roots in the German language from which their English language training in economics had been artificially disconnected. (1986, p. 25)
A similarly muddled confounding of the distinct intellectual traditions of Austria and Germany is manifest also in McCloskey 1985, p. 39.
Later, in outlining some theses of Austrian thought, Smith says:
Theses (ii) and (vi) distinguish the doctrine from all sorts of historicism, as also from hermeneuticistic relativism and other modern fancies.
referring to:
(ii) There are in the world certain simple ‘essences’ or ‘natures’ or ‘elements’, as well as laws, structures or connections governing these, all of which are strictly universal. They are universal both in the sense that they do not change historically, and also in the sense that they are capable of being instantiated, in principle (which is to say: if the appropriate conditions are satisfied), at all times and in all cultures. & (v) We can know, albeit under the conditions set out in (iv) [The general aspect of experience need be in no sense infallible (it reflects no special source of special knowledge), and may be subject to just the same sorts of errors as is our knowledge of what is individual.], what the world is like, at least in its broad outlines, both via common sense and via scientific method. Thus Aristotelianism in the sense that is relevant for us here embraces not only common-sense realism but also scientific realism, though Aristotle himself ran these two positions together in ways no longer possible today.28 The common-sense realism of Menger (as of all Austrian economists) is seen in his treatment of agents, actions, beliefs, desires, etc. In regard to these sorts of entity (as also to ethical and other values) there is no opposition between reality as it appears to common sense and reality as revealed to scientific theory. Menger‘s (and the later Austrian economists’) scientific realism, on the other hand, is revealed in the treatment of phenomena such as spontaneous orders and invisible hand processes, where common sense diverges to some degree from the fine structures disclosed by theory.29
(ii) There are in the world certain simple ‘essences’ or ‘natures’ or ‘elements’, as well as laws, structures or connections governing these, all of which are strictly universal. They are universal both in the sense that they do not change historically, and also in the sense that they are capable of being instantiated, in principle (which is to say: if the appropriate conditions are satisfied), at all times and in all cultures.
&
(v) We can know, albeit under the conditions set out in (iv) [The general aspect of experience need be in no sense infallible (it reflects no special source of special knowledge), and may be subject to just the same sorts of errors as is our knowledge of what is individual.], what the world is like, at least in its broad outlines, both via common sense and via scientific method. Thus Aristotelianism in the sense that is relevant for us here embraces not only common-sense realism but also scientific realism, though Aristotle himself ran these two positions together in ways no longer possible today.28 The common-sense realism of Menger (as of all Austrian economists) is seen in his treatment of agents, actions, beliefs, desires, etc. In regard to these sorts of entity (as also to ethical and other values) there is no opposition between reality as it appears to common sense and reality as revealed to scientific theory. Menger‘s (and the later Austrian economists’) scientific realism, on the other hand, is revealed in the treatment of phenomena such as spontaneous orders and invisible hand processes, where common sense diverges to some degree from the fine structures disclosed by theory.29
On Heidegger, there is this piece by David Gordon. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember he is pretty critical of hermeneutics. Then there is this piece by Long which tries to rectify the views of Mises, Rothbard, & Lavoie via Wittgenstein.
I think there's definitely some problems with hermeneutics + AE. I could be wrong, but I think Lavoie is a member of the GMU crowd that's sort of been excommunicated from the Austrian school. I don't know if hermeneutics is totally irrelevant to praxeology though. I find bits of wisdom here and there, but people like Gadamer are hard to understand.
Phenomenology is a separate thing though, and I am not able to explain Mises' link to it right now. I think that he may mention Husserl in Human Action. I've been spending a lot of time investigating Reinach and trying to integrate his thoughts with Austrian law. You might also want to look at Dilthey and Alfred Schutz. Rothbard had some positive things to say about Schutz. I would also suggest David Linge's lenghty introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics, a collection of Gadamer essays, as well as some of the later chapters on Heidegger.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
I could be wrong, but I think Lavoie is a member of the GMU crowd that's sort of been excommunicated from the Austrian school.
You are wrong, and this is coming from somebody who thinks that economists should stick to economics and forget about all the philosophical crap, so I don't have much time for hermeneutics myself.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
hayekianxyz: [I think that] economists should stick to economics and forget about all the philosophical crap[.]
[I think that] economists should stick to economics and forget about all the philosophical crap[.]
Why? What comes to your mind when you think of "philosophical crap"?
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.