Transactional economics: John Dewey's ways of knowing and the radical subjectivism of the austrian school

Education and Culture 22 (2):61-82 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The subjectivism of the Austrian school of economics is a special case of Dewey's transactional philosophy, also known as pragmatism or pragmatic epistemology. The Austrian economists Carl Friedrich Menger (1840-1921) and Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) adopted an Aristotelian deductive approach to economic issues such as social behavior and exchange. Like Menger and Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) viewed scientific knowledge, even in the social sciences, as asserting and aiming for objective certainty. Hayek was particularly critical of attempts to apply the empiricism of the natural sciences in the social sciences. Though Hayek was not a positivist in the sense ascribed to Milton Friedman (1912-), because he accepted the possibility of final, objective certainty, Hayek's view of scientific knowledge was closer to that of the logical positivists of the Vienna circle than to Dewey's pragmatism. Mises' a priorism, asserting and aiming for apodictic certainty, represented a more extreme form of objectivism even than Hayek's. Mises was similar in this regard to non-Austrian axiomatists such as Gerard Debreau (1921-2005), though he joined Hayek in eschewing mathematical formalism. In Dewey's contrasting view, the scientist commends new, alternative ways of knowing to the scientific community, offering more profound insight or more efficacious practical applications. Alternative ways of knowing which do not offer practical or intellectual benefits are to be rejected. Both the radical subjectivism of the Austrian school and Dewey's transactional strategy justify rejection of the mirage of social justice. Dewey's knowledge as ways of knowing suggests a broader and more fundamental critique of the socialist position in the calculation debate. The arguments presented by the Austrian school can be reformulated in terms of Dewey's pragmatic philosophy.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,323

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Hayek the Apriorist?Scott Scheall - 2015 - Journal of the History of Economic Thought:87-110.
Austrian Methodology.Adam Martin - 2015 - In Peter J. Boettke & Christopher J. Coyne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics. Oxford University Press USA.
Philosophy of Austrian Economics.Alexander Linsbichler - 2022 - In Conrad Heilmann & Julian Reiss (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Economics. Routledge. pp. 169-185.
The philosophy of Austrian economics. [REVIEW]Barry Smith - 1994 - The Review of Austrian Economics 7 (2):127-132.
Philosophy of Austrian Economics - Extended Cut.Alexander Linsbichler - 2021 - Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University Working Paper Series.
Complexity and Austrian Economics.J. Barkley Rosser - 2015 - In Peter J. Boettke & Christopher J. Coyne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics. Oxford University Press USA.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
72 (#297,382)

6 months
20 (#146,662)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Morals and markets: Liberal democracy through Dewey and Hayek.Colin Koopman - 2009 - Journal of Speculative Philosophy 23 (3):pp. 151-179.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Der Logische Aufbau der Welt.Rudolf Carnap - 1928 - Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.
Experience and education.John Dewey - 1998 - West Lafayette, Ind.: Kappa Delta Pi.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.David Bohm - 1964 - Philosophical Quarterly 14 (57):377-379.
Cybernetics.Norbert Wiener - 1961 - New York,: M.I.T. Press.

View all 38 references / Add more references