What is extreme about Mises’s extreme apriorism?

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    8 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    There is something extreme about Ludwig von Mises’s methodological apriorism, namely, his epistemological justification of the a priori element(s) of economic theory. His critics have long recognized and attacked the extremeness of Mises’s epistemology of a priori knowledge. However, several of his defenders have neglected what is (and what has long been recognized by his critics to be) extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Thus, the argument is directed less against Mises than against those contributions to the secondary literature that assert his methodological moderation while overlooking what the most prominent critics have found extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Defending Mises as a merely moderate apriorist because he held only a narrow part of the foundation of economics to be a priori is a straw-man defense against criticisms of his apriorism as epistemologically extreme.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)226-249
    Number of pages24
    JournalJournal of Economic Methodology
    Volume24
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jul 3 2017

    Keywords

    • Austrian economics
    • F.A. Hayek
    • Ludwig von Mises
    • Mark Blaug
    • Terence Hutchison
    • apriorism

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'What is extreme about Mises’s extreme apriorism?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this