[pyrale]

Praxeology goes far beyond rejecting specific empirical studies, it rejects the very concept of learning human behaviour from past data. Or, to quote Mises himself [1]:

> The subject matter of all historical sciences is the past. They cannot teach us anything which would be valid for all human actions, that is, for the future too. The study of history makes a man wise and judicious. But it does not by itself provide any knowledge and skill which could be utilized for handling concrete tasks.

He does make a difference between natural science and history, claiming that natural science carefully isolates elements in order to enable inference. That point would be thoroughly debunked by current AI systems, considering that by his definition these systems would be in the field of history.

Mises makes this distinction between natural science and history, because he can then claim that:

> The experience with which the sciences of human action have to deal is always an experience of complex phenomena. No laboratory experiments can be performed with regard to human action.

And since praxeology isn't simple enough to be criticized by natural science and that historical sciences have no say about current affairs, he rejects criticism from either field. This line of reasoning may have been tricky to attack in 1920, but it's completely obsolete in 2025.

[1]: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/greaves-human-action-a-tr...

[MichaelZuo]

When I wrote “all possible” I meant a set that includes everything imaginable and unimaginable…

None of these quotes suggest that literally 100% of the set is rejected.

[pyrale]

Mises' exact words were that praxeology is "not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts." He did not believe the scientific method was fit for the study of human actions.

More detailed quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42977051

[justushamalaine]

I have ended up with different understanding from Von Mises text. The point is that economics need to progress from axioms that are true.

This means that we start with axioms like humans have ideas how to improve their situation. Humans act with the goal of attaining to ideas they have. These are something that we can't or don't need to prove. With these two axioms we can start creating a complete set of reasonings that will explain market phenomena that happens in the real world.

And the reason why this is needed and is so important is that there are no constants in the realm of human action. That is the criticism of positivism in economics.

Positivist methods can help greatly with building theories in "natural sciences" as there are mechanistic actions and constants that are revealed by comparing rations. (this is the way we got to understand how atoms bind to molecules and how strong the gravity is). We haven't found similar constants in market phenomena and Von Mises thought we never will.

But we have found laws like the law of supply and demand or comparative advantage. And that we have reached with using only reasoning.

[MichaelZuo]

Do you not see the “on the ground of experience and facts”?

It’s literally right there.

If he said “on any possible ground whatsoever including all currently unimagineable ones” then that would imply what you think it’s supposed to imply.

[pyrale]

You know, sometimes you should read the source material, rather than aggressively arguing about stuff you don't really grasp.

[MichaelZuo]

So why is your opinion any more relevant than mine…?

Even if you think my comment had zero substance, posting a reply with also zero substance seems bizarre.