What is Mises’ approach to the singular events of human history?
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What is Mises’ approach to the singular events of human history?
Started by Murphy, Sep 08 2005 09:14 PM
5 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted 12 August 2008 - 07:32 PM
Mises believes that all human actions are a collection of singular events. These events are better known than the classes of events. Each is based on individual knowledge done by individuals who can learn individually, but never to be repeated.
#3
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Posted 15 November 2008 - 06:01 PM
Mart Grams, on Aug 12 2008, 06:32 PM, said:
Mises believes that all human actions are a collection of singular events. These events are better known than the classes of events. Each is based on individual knowledge done by individuals who can learn individually, but never to be repeated.
OK, I think for this one I had in mind Mises' notion of historical understanding.
#4
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Posted 15 November 2008 - 06:02 PM
Murphy, on Nov 15 2008, 05:01 PM, said:
OK, I think for this one I had in mind Mises' notion of historical understanding.
For sure, Mises would say the singular events of human history fall under the realm of case probability, not class probability.
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Posted 15 November 2008 - 11:25 PM
Pragmatic philosophy appreciates knowledge because it gives power and makes people fit to accomplish things. From this point of view the positivists reject history as useless. We have tried to demonstrate the service that history renders to acting man in making him understand the situation in which he has to act. We have tried to provide a practical justification of history.
But there is more than this in the study of history. It not only provides knowledge indispensable to preparing political decisions. It opens the mind toward an understanding of human nature and destiny. It increases wisdom. It is the very essence of that much miss-interpreted concept, a liberal education. It is the foremost approach to humanism, the lore of the specifically human concerns that distinguish man from other living beings. page 293 Theory and History
The singular events are case probability, but cannot be taken as the only outcome (class probability). History is a set of "sign posts" giving guidelines of what may happen in similar situations, but there are no natural laws of human action, other than praxeological ones. Not only is there no certain outcome, historians (and individuals) see the same past differently, and the same person sees the same past differently at different times. Even historic understanding is subjective.
Is this what you were looking at?
But there is more than this in the study of history. It not only provides knowledge indispensable to preparing political decisions. It opens the mind toward an understanding of human nature and destiny. It increases wisdom. It is the very essence of that much miss-interpreted concept, a liberal education. It is the foremost approach to humanism, the lore of the specifically human concerns that distinguish man from other living beings. page 293 Theory and History
The singular events are case probability, but cannot be taken as the only outcome (class probability). History is a set of "sign posts" giving guidelines of what may happen in similar situations, but there are no natural laws of human action, other than praxeological ones. Not only is there no certain outcome, historians (and individuals) see the same past differently, and the same person sees the same past differently at different times. Even historic understanding is subjective.
Is this what you were looking at?
#6
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Posted 12 February 2009 - 03:29 PM
Mart Grams, on Nov 15 2008, 10:25 PM, said:
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Is this what you were looking at?
Is this what you were looking at?
Well, I think I had in mind something from Human Action when I answered you earlier, but yeah, the quotes you found are certainly consistent with what I was saying. Mises somewhere says something along the lines of, "When trying to reduce historical events to their 'causes,' at some point you hit a wall. You have to say, 'Napoleon ordered that attack because he was Napoleon.'"
I'm not doing the quote justice, but Mises' point is that ultimately human action is a unique causal force. And so in the context of his case/class probability distinction, historical events fall under case.
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