[P]raxeology: is Mises’ failed attempt at discovering Operationalism in economics, as it was discovered in psychology (Operationism), Intuitionism (mathematics) and Operationalism (physics). Regardless of field it is reducible to the statement that we cannot know whether we are discussing (or whether one testifies to) the imaginary or the existential unless it can be described as a set of operations – even if limited to measurements.
All knowledge is theoretical because all premises other than the reductio are theoretical. The construction of a theory is immaterial. It is whether we can operationalize that theory that determines whether we can claim it is stated truthfully. This is how scientists function and have functioned – and is the reason for their success.
And the discipline of Science is misunderstood: it is the only known technique for speaking truthfully regardless of subject matter. If one cannot speak scientifically, then one is not speaking truthfully – only analogically – in allegory and metaphors. Only operationally demonstrable statements refer to the existential. All others are allegorical, not existential. They may be meaningful, and meaning may be helpful – but they are not TRUE.
Mises was unfortunately not enough of a scientist or mathematician, and was too much fascinated by German verbalism to make the leap that Anglos and Netherlander’s did. He would have been easily corrected by someone like myself earlier, if he had not been so firmly associated with Rothbard and his reputation damaged so severely by that association.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
