II. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF
THE SCIENCES OF HUMAN ACTION
1. Praxeology and History
THERE are two main branches of the sciences of human action: praxeology and history.
History is the collection and systematic
arrangement of all data of experience concerning human action. It deals
with the concrete content of human action. It studies all human
endeavors in their infinite multiplicity and variety and all individual
actions with all their accidental, special, and particular implications.
It scrutinizes the ideas guiding acting men and the outcome of the
actions performed. It embraces every aspect of human activities. It is
on the one hand general history and on the other hand the history of
various narrower fields. There is the history of political and military
action, of ideas and philosophy, of economic activities, of technology,
of literature, art, and science, of religion, of mores and customs, and
of many other realms of human life. There is ethnology and anthropology,
as far as they are not a part of biology, and there is psychology as
far as it is neither physiology nor epistemology nor philosophy. There
is linguistics as far as it is neither logic nor the physiology of
speech.
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.
The natural sciences too deal with past events. Every experience is
an experience of something passed away; there is no experience of future
happenings. But the experience to which the natural sciences owe all
their success is the experience of the experiment in which the individual elements of change can be observed in isolation.
The facts amassed in this way can be used for induction, a peculiar
procedure of inference which has given pragmatic evidence of its
expediency, although its satisfactory epistemological characterization
is still an unsolved problem.
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. We are never in a
position to observe the change in one element only, all other conditions
of the event being equal to a case in which the element concerned did
not change. Historical experience as an experience of complex phenomena
does not provide us with facts in the sense in which the natural
sciences employ this term to signify isolated events tested in
experiments. The information conveyed by historical experience cannot be
used as building material for the construction of theories and the
prediction of future events. Every historical experience is open to
various interpretations, and is in fact interpreted in different ways.
The postulates of positivism and kindred schools of metaphysics are
therefore illusory. It is impossible to reform the sciences of human
action according to the pattern of physics and the other natural
sciences. There is no means to establish an a posteriori theory of human
conduct and social events. History can neither prove nor disprove any
general statement in the manner in which the natural sciences accept or
reject a hypothesis on the ground of laboratory experiments. Neither
experimental verification nor experimental falsification of a general
proposition are possible in this field.
Complex phenomena in the production of which
various causal chains are interlaced cannot test any theory. Such
phenomena, on the contrary, become intelligible only through an
interpretation in terms of theories previously developed from other
sources. In the case of natural phenomena the interpretation of an event
must not be at variance with the theories satisfactorily verified by
experiments. In the case of historical events there is no such
restriction. Commentators would be free to resort to quite arbitrary explanations. Where there is something to explain, the human mind has never been at a loss to invent ad hoc some imaginary theories, lacking any logical justification.
A limitation similar to that which the experimentally tested theories
enjoin upon the attempts to interpret and elucidate individual
physical, chemical, and physiological events is provided by praxeology
in the field of human history. Praxeology is a theoretical and
systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as
such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual
circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and
general without reference to the material content and the particular
features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all
instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in
its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not
derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics,
a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the
ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally
antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. They are a
necessary requirement of any intellectual grasp of historical events.
Without them we should not be able to see in the course of events
anything else than kaleidoscopic change and chaotic muddle.
THERE are two main branches of the sciences of human action: praxeology and history.
History is the collection and systematic
arrangement of all data of experience concerning human action. It deals
with the concrete content of human action. It studies all human
endeavors in their infinite multiplicity and variety and all individual
actions with all their accidental, special, and particular implications.
It scrutinizes the ideas guiding acting men and the outcome of the
actions performed. It embraces every aspect of human activities. It is
on the one hand general history and on the other hand the history of
various narrower fields. There is the history of political and military
action, of ideas and philosophy, of economic activities, of technology,
of literature, art, and science, of religion, of mores and customs, and
of many other realms of human life. There is ethnology and anthropology,
as far as they are not a part of biology, and there is psychology as
far as it is neither physiology nor epistemology nor philosophy. There
is linguistics as far as it is neither logic nor the physiology of
speech.
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.The natural sciences too deal with past events. Every experience is an experience of something passed away; there is no experience of future happenings. But the experience to which the natural sciences owe all their success is the experience of the experiment in which the individual elements of change can be observed in isolation. The facts amassed in this way can be used for induction, a peculiar procedure of inference which has given pragmatic evidence of its expediency, although its satisfactory epistemological characterization is still an unsolved problem.
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. We are never in a position to observe the change in one element only, all other conditions of the event being equal to a case in which the element concerned did not change. Historical experience as an experience of complex phenomena does not provide us with facts in the sense in which the natural sciences employ this term to signify isolated events tested in experiments. The information conveyed by historical experience cannot be used as building material for the construction of theories and the prediction of future events. Every historical experience is open to various interpretations, and is in fact interpreted in different ways.
The postulates of positivism and kindred schools of metaphysics are therefore illusory. It is impossible to reform the sciences of human action according to the pattern of physics and the other natural sciences. There is no means to establish an a posteriori theory of human conduct and social events. History can neither prove nor disprove any general statement in the manner in which the natural sciences accept or reject a hypothesis on the ground of laboratory experiments. Neither experimental verification nor experimental falsification of a general proposition are possible in this field.
Complex phenomena in the production of which various causal chains are interlaced cannot test any theory. Such phenomena, on the contrary, become intelligible only through an interpretation in terms of theories previously developed from other sources. In the case of natural phenomena the interpretation of an event must not be at variance with the theories satisfactorily verified by experiments. In the case of historical events there is no such restriction. Commentators would be free to resort to quite arbitrary explanations. Where there is something to explain, the human mind has never been at a loss to invent ad hoc some imaginary theories, lacking any logical justification.
A limitation similar to that which the experimentally tested theories enjoin upon the attempts to interpret and elucidate individual physical, chemical, and physiological events is provided by praxeology in the field of human history. Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. They are a necessary requirement of any intellectual grasp of historical events. Without them we should not be able to see in the course of events anything else than kaleidoscopic change and chaotic muddle.
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