Re: Marginal utility and history

Adam Knott — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:12:21 GMT

Hi Jeremiah.

Mises would be referring to the distinction between what he would call an "a priori" category, and the particular events that are the "content" of those categories.

"If we qualify a concept or a proposition as a priori, we want to say: first, that the negation of what it asserts is unthinkable for the human mind and appears to it as nonsense; secondly, that this a priori concept or proposition is necessarily implied in our mental approach to all the problems concerned, i.e., in our thinking and acting concerning these problems." (The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p.18)

To give an analogy that may apply to your question:

If we suppose that in the past, person A walked 100 feet to the west, then we "deduce" that person A also walked 100 feet away from the east. That is the a priori part.

But we cannot conclude from this that person A will walk 100 feet to the west tomorrow. That is the historical part.

Marginal utility and history

Jeremiah Dyke — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:01:45 GMT

I remember early in Human Action, Mises was speaking about the fallaciousness of using history as a proxy for current events since no two histories are the same, yet, if one is speaking about marginal utility are they not evoking the same argument? Thus, if one cannot draw proper conclusions from history since the factors of history have since changed and no history can ever repeat itself, why can one draw conclusions about past events of consumption and marginal utility?

Economics Questions

Re: Marginal utility and history

Marginal utility and history