On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology
Section 1. As have most great and innovative economists, Ludwig von Mises intensely and repeatedly analyzed the problem of the logical status of economic propositions, i.e. how we come to know them and how we validate them.
Indeed, Mises ranks foremost among those who hold that such a concern is indispensable in order to achieve systematic progress in economics, for any misconception regarding the answer to such fundamental questions of one's intellectual enterprise would naturally have to lead to intellectual disaster, i.e. to false economic doctrines.
Accordingly, three of Mises's books are devoted entirely to clarifying the logical foundations
of economics. His early epistemological problems of economics, published in German in 1933,
his theory and history of 1957, and his ultimate foundations of economic science of 1962, Mises's
last book appearing when he was already well past his 80th birthday, and his works in the field of
of Economics proper, also invariably display the importance which Mises attached to the analysis of epistemological problems.
Most characteristically, Human Action, his masterpiece, deals in its first hundred odd pages exclusively with such problems,
and the other nearly eight hundred pages of the book are permeated with epistemological considerations.
Quite in line with the tradition of Mises, then, the foundations of economics are also the subject
of this chapter. I have set myself a two-fold goal. First, I want to explain the solution
which Mises advances regarding the problem of the ultimate foundation of economic science,
i.e. his idea of a pure theory of action, or praxeology, as he himself terms it.
And secondly, I want to demonstrate why Mises's solution is much more than just an incontestable insight into the nature of economics and economic propositions.
It provides an insight that also enables us to understand the foundation on which epistemology ultimately rests.
In fact, as the title of the chapter suggests, I want to show that it is praxeology which must be
regarded as the very foundation of epistemology, and hence that Mises, aside from his great
achievements as an economist, also contributed path-breaking insights regarding the justification
of the entire enterprise of rationalist philosophy.