RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer
As an empiricist, Friedman takes a theory to explain a phenomenon if it enables us to predict
the phenomenon’s occurrence; whereas for Austrians, to explain economic
phenomena is, in Ludwig Lachmann’s phrase, “to make the world
around us intelligible in terms of human action and the pursuit of plans”
(Lachmann 1977, pp. 261–62).Lachmann, Ludwig M. 1977. “Sir John Hicks as a Neo-Austrian.” In Capital, Expectations,
and the Market Process. Walter E. Grinder, ed. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and
McMeel.
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer
Aristotle’s theory of abstraction may be seen as a response to the following
worry. It can easily seem that abstract concepts do not strictly apply to reality.
Aristotle. . 1951. Physica. W.D. Ross, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
We must consider how the mathematician differs from the physicist; for
physical bodies have surfaces and volumes, lengths and points, all of
which fall within the mathematician’s purview. . . . Now the mathematician
too is concerned with such things, but not qua boundaries of physical
bodies. . . . For they are separable in thought from motion, though from
this separation no distinction or falsity arises. (Physics 193b22–36)
prepsat neco podobne na ekonomii
Abstraction may occur in two ways. First . . . we may understand that one
thing does not exist in some other, or that it is separate from it. Secondly
. . . we understand one thing without considering another. Thus, for the
intellect to abstract one from another things which are not really abstract
from one another, does, in the first mode of abstraction, imply falsehood.
But, in the second mode of abstraction, for the intellect to abstract things
which are not really abstract from one another, does not involve falsehood.
. . . If, therefore, the intellect is said to be false when it understands a thing
otherwise than as it is, that is so, if the word otherwise refers to the thing
understood. . . . Hence, the intellect would be false if it abstracted the
species of a stone from its matter in such a way as to think that the species
did not exist in matter, as Plato held. But it is not so, if otherwise be taken
as referring to the one who understands. (Summa Theologiæ I. 85. 1 ad 1;
Aquinas 1999, p. 157)
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer
In recent years, this Aristotelean approach to abstraction has been revived
by Ayn Rand. On the issue of universals Abélard was a nominalist and
Aquinas a realist, while Rand attempted to transcend the nominalist/realist
dichotomy altogether; all three thinkers, however, stand in the Aristotelean tradition,
and all three appealed to nonprecisive abstraction to explain how concepts
apply to reality. Rand does not employ the Scholastic terminology, but
her approach follows that of her Aristotelean predecessors.
Rand, Ayn. 1990. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology: Expanded Second Edition.
Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff, eds. New York: Penguin.
If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick, he observes that length is
the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. . . . In
order to form the concept “length,” the child’s mind retains the attribute and
omits its particular measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were
identified in words, it would consist of the following: “Length must exist in
some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as ‘length’ that
attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to
a unit of length, without specifying the quantity. . . . Bear firmly in mind
that the term “measurements omitted” does not mean, in this context, that
measurements are regarded as non-existent; it means that measurements
exist, but are not specified. (Rand 1990, pp. 11–12)
The basic principle of concept-formation (which states that the omitted
measurements must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity)
is the equivalent of the basic principle of algebra, which states that algebraic
symbols must be given some numerical value, but may be given any
value. . . . In the equation 2a = a + a, any number may be substituted for
the symbol “a” without affecting the truth of the equation. . . . Let those
who attempt to invalidate concepts by declaring that they cannot find
“manness” in men, try to invalidate algebra by declaring that they cannot
find “a-ness” in 5 or in 5,000,000. ((Rand 1990,p. 18)
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer, p.9
Friedman, as we’ve seen, thinks that a worthwhile economic theory
“must be descriptively false in its assumptions,” since it “takes account of, and
accounts for, none of the many other attendant circumstances” but instead
“abstracts the common and crucial elements from the mass of complex and
detailed circumstances.” Friedman is of course quite right that an economic
theory needs to leave aside a mass of complex details; but so long as it leaves
them aside by failing to specify them, rather than by specifying their absence,
it does not need to be descriptively false.
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer, p.10
But realism does not
demand that all these extraneous traits be specified; it merely demands that
their nonexistence not be specified either. Those who criticize neoclassical
models for their lack of realism are not seeking a precisive abstraction that
more closely approximates reality; rather, they are seeking an abstraction that
is not precisive at all. The right question to ask is not “How closely should our
theories approximate reality in order to yield useful predictions?” but rather
“How much specificity should our theories incorporate in order to yield useful
explanations?”
Comte, Charles. 1826. Traité de Législation; ou Exposition des Lois Générales Suivant
Lesquelles les Peuples Prospèrent, Dépérissent ou Restent Stationnaires. Paris:
Sautelet.
One must not confuse an incomplete analysis with a false or unfaithful
analysis. The former indicates only part of the characteristics of the object
described; but everything that it does describe is correct, and it refrains
from asserting that there exist no other characteristics than those which it
has outlined. The latter describes things otherwise than they are, or presents,
as complete, descriptions that are not so. (Comte 1826, vol. 1, pp.
79–80)
BUT
Milton Friedman
"The Methodology of Positive Economics" In Essays In Positive Economics
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 25
Euclidean geometry is an abstract model, logically complete and consistent.
Its entities are precisely defined—a line is not a geometrical figure
“much” longer than it is wide and deep; it is a figure whose width and
depth are zero. It is also obviously “unrealistic.” There are no such things
in “reality” as Euclidean points or lines or surfaces. (Friedman 1953, p. 25)
Bastiat, Frédéric. 1964. Economic Harmonies. W. Hayden Boyers, trans. Irvington-on-Hudson,
N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Foundation.
Religious sentiment, paternal and maternal affection, filial devotion, love,
friendship, patriotism, charity, politeness—these belong to the moral
realm, which embraces all the appealing regions of human sympathy, leaving
for the sister science of political economy only the cold domain of selfinterest.
. . . What does it deal with? With transactions carried on between
people who do not know each other, who owe each other nothing beyond
simple justice, who are defending and seeking to advance their own selfinterest.
It deals with claims that are restricted and limited by other claims,
where self-sacrifice and unselfish dedication have no place. . . . Thus,
political economy regards man from one side only, and our first concern
must be to study him from this point of view. (Bastiat 1964, pp. 25–26)
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer, p.14
The classicals were not really such fools as to suppose that “self-interested”
and “altruistic” motives can be cleanly separated into different compartments
of life; but they did regard the hypothesis of pure self-interest as a good
enough predictor of people’s behavior in the business world. In short, their
position was rather like Friedman’s. They differed from Friedman, of course,
in wanting their theories to be at least close approximations to reality, whereas
for Friedman it is only a theory’s predictions, not the theory itself, that must
be squared with reality; but for the classicals no less than for Friedman the
principles of economics are precisive abstractions and thus are not strictly
applicable to the real world.
Mises, 1978. Notes and Recollections. Hans Sennholz, trans. South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian
Press.
The task of economics, as many epigones of the classical economists practised
it, was to deal not with events as they really happened, but only with
forces that contributed in some not clearly defined manner to the emergence
of what really happened. Economics did not actually aim at explaining
the formation of market prices, but at the description of something
that together with other factors played a certain, not clearly described role
in the process. (Mises 1978, p. 75)
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer, p.15
On Mises’s view, by contrast, economics “deals with the real actions of real
men. Its theorems refer neither to ideal nor to perfect men, neither to the
phantom of a fabulous economic man (homo oeconomicus) nor to the statistical
notion of an average man (homme moyen)” (Mises . 1966. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. 3rd rev. ed. Chicago: Contemporary Books., p. 651). As for
Menger, Mises suggests that he was “too much under the sway of John Stuart
Mill’s empiricism to carry his own point of view to its full logical consequences”
(Mises. 1984. The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig
von Mises Institute., pp. 27–28).
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical
Investigations. 2nd ed. New York: Harper and Row.
If we want to study the problems of truth and falsehood, of the agreement
and disagreement of propositions with reality, of the nature of assertion,
assumption, and question, we shall with great advantage look at primitive
forms of language in which these forms of thinking appear without the
confusing background of highly complicated processes of thought. When
we look at such simple forms of language the mental mist which seems to
enshroud our ordinary use of language disappears. We see activities, reactions,
which are clear-cut and transparent. . . . We see that we can build
up the complicated forms from the primitive ones by gradually adding
new forms. (Wittgenstein 1980, p. 17)
TOTO KRITIZOVAT:
Milton Friedman
"The Methodology of Positive Economics"
In Essays In Positive Economics
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 3-16, 30-43.
A hypothesis is important if it “explains” much by little, that is, if it
abstracts the common and crucial elements from the mass of complex and
detailed circumstances surrounding the phenomena to be explained and
permits valid predictions on the basis of them alone. To be important,
therefore, a hypothesis must be descriptively false in its assumptions; it
takes account of, and accounts for, none of the many other attendant circumstances,
since its very success shows them to be irrelevant for the phenomena
to be explained. . . . Truly important and significant hypotheses
will be found to have “assumptions” that are wildly inaccurate descriptive
representations of reality, and, in general, the more significant the theory,
the more unrealistic the assumptions. (Friedman 1953, pp. 14–15)
RT Long - Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2006 - Springer, p.21
Whatever else they may disagree on,
Friedman and Mises agree that an a priori ethics is impossible. Those who
defend the possibility of a rationally justifiable ethics, Mises contends, are
essentially claiming that moral knowledge is “imparted to man by an inner
voice, i.e., by intuition,” and fail to recognize that “with regard to the interpretation
of the inner voice . . . no method of peacefully settling . . . disagreements
can be found” (Mises 1985, p. 53). The parallel between Mises’s criticism
of a priori ethics and Friedman’s criticism of Mises’s own a priori
economics is striking—and should lead us to suspect that Mises has here fallen
into Friedman’s own confusion between the private character of an “inner
voice” and the public character of logic.
toto jsme kdysi hledali
Tomáš SEDLÁČEK, ekonom /ukázka/ -------------------- V Český republice je ten problém, že se nám prostě daří a daří se nám i bez reforem. Takže když se analytici snaží najít slabinu naší ekonomiky, tak to v makročíslech nenaleznou, ale největší slabina naší ekonomiky je paradoxně v její síle. V momentě, kdy ta ekonomika je silná a funguje, lidem se daří jakžtakž dobře, tak přesvědčujte národ, že je s výhledem dvaceti, třiceti let třeba si utáhnout opasky. Lidé tuší, že není všechno v pořádku, ale nevidí důvod k radikálním reformám. Těch radikálních reforem se bojí a je do jistý míry chybou politiků, že nebyli schopni komunikovat, že ty reformy se dělají de facto nikoliv pro politiku nebo proto, že to po nás chce měnový, Mezinárodní měnový fond, ale že ty reformy de facto jsou pro lidi a je to stejně tak, jako když si děláte dietu. Tu děláte sám pro sebe. Politik je od toho, aby lidi přesvědčil, že je byt třeba vymalovat, to znamená, je třeba se vystěhovat, je třeba dát do toho práce, je třeba si neužívat pohodlí svého vlastního domova po několik dnů, ale, když se vrátíme, tak ten byt bude vymalovaný.
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