General

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

vive la insurrection — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:10:49 GMT

This may be why we should look to the Austrian subjectivist / egoist Freud, as "positivists" / traditional analytic people have an unwarrented hard-on for behviorism and/or or cognitive science.

At the very least I think it may be a good over simplistic analogy for us:

Austrians are to Freud as Neoclassicals are to behaviorism

P.S:

things like "Oedipus Complex" are no more or less a scientific phrases as "positive stimulus" or whatever math numbers you wish to throw out there.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Jargon — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:29:02 GMT

I think another possible developable area of praxeology is workplace organization. Specifically the different types of workplace organization: workers co-ops (democratically managed) and standard managerial types are the two that come to mind.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Clayton — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:09:49 GMT

Thanks for the recommendations.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Aristippus — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:37:49 GMT

You might want to look at:

Philip R. Davies, Whose Bible Is It Anyway?

Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools

Russell E. Gmirkin, Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch

Michael D. Magee, Persia and the Creation of Judaism. Available online: http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/non-iranian/Judaism/Persian_Judaism/Persia_created_judaism.htm

Thomas L. Thompson, The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past

Thomas L. Thompson, The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Clayton — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:03:17 GMT

were Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles and king-lists, as well as foreign and local legends

Any book/article recommendations on this are welcome. I have some familiarity with a lot of the monkey-business surrounding the formation of the New Testament canon but I've always been intensely curious about what we can figure out about the Jewish canon based on textual/historical analysis. Other than McKenzie's book, I've not read anything else on this subject.

Clayton -

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

baxter — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:01:18 GMT

>Mises explained what Thymology was ,but has anyone tried to examine it's range of inquiry or tried to sketch what conclusions it would come to?

You've used thymology in posting here since you successfully forecasted that others would be interested in reading and responding to your post. Even a child can use thymology.

Basically, thymology is any kind of assessment of people's motives - either their historical motives or predicted future motives. It is not a science, but an art. Unlike praxeology, it can come to no conclusions - only interpretations or speculations.

I think mathematically modelling people's behavior falls under thymology. Also, to improve your thymology, try learning about general principles of forecasting. Maybe learning about history, psychology, or investing strategies would help too?

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Aristippus — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:53:25 GMT

I think the existence of any such oral history of Judea from before the Persian settlement in the region is extremely doubtful. It seems much more likely that the sources used to compile the books of Samuel, Judges etc. were Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles and king-lists, as well as foreign and local legends, and that these stories were formed many centuries after the events they narrate. But yes, many of the stories may have been based on actual people or legendary renditions of their deeds.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Clayton — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:45:12 GMT

I do not think that the King David presented in the Bible actually existed, but is rather a legendary and possibly eponymous hero.

McKenzie starts off with this question and concludes that David could possibly be a single person and his name could possibly have been David but it doesn't really matter to the point he wants to make in analyzing the Biblical narrative. If David was not a single, historical king ("chieftain" would, perhaps, be more accurate), then he is a mish-mash of the court histories of several such figures, possibly written much later from oral histories and then synthesized.

The Babylonian captivity is a likely time and place for this to have occurred. For example, the "upper class" captives may have collected pre-Solomonic oral history into a single narrative of the Judges, Saul and David and dressed David up into this heroic figure in order to impress their captors with the grandiosity of their heritage.

McKenzie identifies editorial mistakes that reveal layers of modifications and re-modifications of the texts. For example, he shows discrepancies between the accounts of Goliath in Samuel versus Chronicles that show it is likely that Goliath was actually killed by a Judaic champion (Elhanan?) but the texts were later changed to attribute this feat to David instead.

Many of the stories must be about real events precisely because the authors went to such great lengths to spin them. Once you peel back the propaganda, what you find is the story of a brutal, petty, mean tyrant, a person of no great character or remarkability.

Clayton -

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Aristippus — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:51:49 GMT

Well I think with Mises that thymology has been ubiquitous since the beginning of human thought. The origin of gods etc. is the attribution of motives and purposive action to natural phenomena, i.e. people attempting to thymologically understand the actions of the sun, of the wind, of lightning, of the seasons etc. The reason that Mises gave such little space to defining thymology is because he saw that the attempt to understand the purposes of action is so basic to human thought (as is action in general, hence its axiomatic nature in praxeology).

In particular written studies, thymology appears from the beginning. In perhaps the first detailed statement of historical method, Thucydides states that the speeches he quotes are not necessarily what the individuals to whom he attributes them actually said, but rather what they would have said. Here he is attempting to thymologically understand the aims of these subjects, and put the words detailing these aims into their mouths.

Just as a side note, I do not think that the King David presented in the Bible actually existed, but is rather a legendary and possibly eponymous hero (maybe based on a god).

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Clayton — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:42:12 GMT

I think we need people to just go out and do it. The field is mostly wide open. Rothbard did a lot of work that could be considered thymological in nature (his revisionist histories). Thomas Woods follows in this great tradition. There's just so much to be done, the field is ripe for the picking. Basically, it just boils down to having the competence and cajones to stand up and just start putting puzzle pieces together as best as they can fit.

For a thymological treatment of King David, read this critical biography. The author is in no way Austrian but his methodology is frankly thymological, based on the "verstehen" method Aristippus mentions, even though he doesn't call it that. This book had a ground-shaking effect on my outlook on the world. At the time, I was a Christian who took most of the Biblical narratives at face value. The Biblical stories of King David are nothing less than ancient propaganda. Thin justifications are laid on top of his many obviously brutal, evil, mean and despicable acts. So twisted are these justifications that they actually spin David into the "King after God's own heart." If tha'ts the case, we're all in very, very big trouble.

By the time McKenzie finishes, you are left with the feeling of being hit over the head with the realization that the stories of King David are some of the most ancient - and most successful! - propaganda ever. The propaganda is actually very crude and easier to see through than modern propaganda. But the essential features of propaganda are all there. Anyway, I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in modern work in the tradition of the Higher Criticism.

Clayton -

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

ThatOldGuy — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:38:04 GMT

Smiling Dave:
[though I bet you already have]

Not so!

Mises mentions it a bit in The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science and the Mises wiki article on the subject is a stub containing, practically, all that is mentioned in that work. I was unaware that he develops it elsewhere.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Smiling Dave — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:32:07 GMT

What more is there to say?

Read Theory and History, chapter 12, [though I bet you already have].

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

ThatOldGuy — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:53:32 GMT

bump

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Aristippus — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:44:48 GMT

Thymology (or 'literary psychology') simply refers to the study of man's ends (or what they have been in the past). This is far, far older than praxeology - indeed, it is present in Homer. As for theoretical study of such things, this was attempted by the south-west German school (e.g. Max Weber), and its offshoots (e.g. Talcott Parsons). Thymology cannot be studied under the same deductive method as praxeology, but instead relies on verstehen (understanding) of the causes of another's action. Also, since causality of action is not the same as that of objects in the natural world, this method of verstehen is always going to be imprecise.

Re: Has anyone developed Thymology?

Smiling Dave — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:38:47 GMT

Does anyone know much about thymology? Dictionary.com never heard of it.

Thinking about it a bit more, a more accurate definition would be the study of why people want what they want, [and praxeology the study of how they go about getting what they want].

If I have it right, then R D Laing seems to fit right in there.

As for existentialist philosophy, that seems to be preaching about what you should want [=to be responsible] than explaining why you want something.

Terrance Mckenna seems to be, from a quick look at Wikipedia, about how the seemingly mindless universe is really one giant factory out to build the ultimate new car.