KOL156 | “The Social Theory of Hoppe: Lecture 4: Epistemology, Methodology, and Dualism; Knowledge, Certainty, Logical Positivism”

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 156. This is the fourth of 6 lectures of my 2011 Mises Academy course “The Social Theory of Hoppe.” I’ll release the remaining lectures here in the podcast feed in upcoming days. The slides for this lecture are appended below; links for“suggested readings” for the course are included in the podcast post for the first lecture, episode 153. Transcript below. Lecture 4: EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND DUALISM; KNOWLEDGE, CERTAINTY, LOGICAL POSITIVISM Video Slides TRANSCRIPT The Social Theory of Hoppe, Lecture 4: Epistemology, Methodology, and Dualism; Knowledge, Certainty, Logical Positivism Stephan Kinsella Mises Academy, Aug. 1, 2011 00:00:01 STEPHAN KINSELLA: … and methodology and epistemological dualism, the Austrian approach.  So if you recall, last time we talked about argumentation ethics and libertarian rights, and as I said, the midterm will be posted shortly.  And some of you may be interested in the IP talk I gave at Mises University on Wednesday, which I have a link to here on the slide two.   And Hoppe also gave two – he has several lectures, but two of them are particularly relevant for tonight actually.  The science of human action and praxeology as a method of economics are both great.  They cover a lot of what we’re going to talk about tonight, actually. 00:00:42 00:00:47 So we’re going to talk epistemology and methodology and dualism, which are the Misesian approach, and related aspects of logical positivism and knowledge and certainty.  And I’m just going to outline here the readings I had suggested that you read with certain pages of A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, Hoppe’s pamphlet, “Economic Science and the Austrian Method.”  I have my ragged old copy here from years in the past.  I don’t know what the current version looks like, notes, so this is my favorite copy, and another paper from EEPP and another journal article on rationalism. 00:01:25 And then there are some supplemental readings if you want to go further.  But we’re going to try to cover as much as we can here.  So let’s start off talking about what we’re talking – the subject of our lecture is the economic science and the methodology appropriate economic science or the discipline of economics.  So what do we mean by the word science?  I mean when I was in college and growing up, the word science to me meant what most people think of it now as technology, gadgets, gizmos, physics, theories, chemistry, things like this, things that are testable. 00:02:01 This is actually sort of a fairly new twist on the word science as caused by the rise of positivism and empiricism and what we might call scientism.  It’s a much older term of course.  You see the little diagram on the right of some spooky government agency, the Information Awareness Office, but they have the all-knowing eye on top of the pyramid looking at the earth and the motto, Scientia est Potentia, which means knowledge is power.  So you see the word science there, meaning just general knowledge.  In the Lionel Robbins, famous sort of proto-Austrian economist, at one point, wrote a treatise in 1932, very influential treatise until the ‘50s probably called “The Nature and Significance of Economic Science.” 00:02:57 So you can see the word science is being used for even economics, although nowadays, most people would restrict it to the technical or natural sciences.  Back in the US Constitution in 1789, in the clause authorizing patent and copyright, look at how the words are arranged here.  This is the power granted to Congress to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their w...