The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics

by David Gordon

An extraordinary philosopher and writer, Gordon explores the philosophical milieu that led to the marginal revolution and the development of the Austrian School. He contrasts this with the positivism and historicism of the dominant part of the profession. Recommended by Barry Smith as a useful and clearly written study of the philosophical origins of Menger's theorizing in economics.

This text is divided into a primary essay which addresses the subject matter indicated by the title, and an extensive bibliographical essay which is sure to inspire and assist further inquiry. This short work is set in a large, easy to read typeface that makes it a particularly good selection for those whose eyesight that may not be what it once was.

[Description taken from Mises.org]

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, History

68 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

David Gordon is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He holds a PhD in intellectual history from UCLA.

Dr. Gordon is editor of The Mises Review, and has contributed to many journals including analysis, The International Philosophic Quarterly, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, and The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

Reviews

[عدنان العبار · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential for anyone interested in the origins of an economic theory that is philosophical (or logical; synthetic a priori) rather than empirical (synthetic a posteriori). I would also recommend complementing this book with Hoppe's Economic Science and the Austrian Method.

The book starts from Menger's economics, and its relationship to Hegel's and Brentano's philosophy. Then goes to the second central figure of Austrian economics, Bohm-Bawerck. And ends with Mises' philosophy and economics.

There's a bibliographical essay at the end which has a list of amazing books all around philosophy, and surprisingly, I liked the bibliographical essay more than the main book, even though I enjoyed the book every bit!

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very short book. It is nevertheless very interesting. Gordon says that Carl Menger was influenced by Franz Brentano and through him, Aristotle. Eugen Böhm-Bawerk. was influenced by of all people William of Ockham.

Ludwig von Mises, on the other hand, considered economic principles to be Kantian synthetic a priori truths. He did a lot of work to defend Austrian principles from the attacks of logical positivists.

Three men are credited with developing the subjective theory of value: Menger, Jevons and Walras. Only Menger thought of valuation as an act of preference, as a judgment. Jevons thought of a value as measurable in units of pleasure or utility. Walras thought of value as an arbitrary unit.

Von Mises said “if one excepts the terminology of logical positivism… A theory or hypothesis is unscientific if it cannot be refuted by experience. Consequently, all a priori theories, including mathematics and praxeology are unscientific.“ At this point, Gordon offers an argument against the verifiability doctrine, one which I have never heard.

Moving on to Popper, he points out that “critical rationalism” as Popper calls his epistemology, is merely skepticism. “No matter how many times the demand curve has been found a slope downwards and to the right, the chances of this statement is true have not gone up.“

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much inside baseball: he refers to many obscure economists -philosophers and gives his thumbnail view. I don't know if he's right. Soto read this you have to have a lot of odd readings behind you.

Basically iIts a very broad excursion of what is and what is not Economics by looking at the history constructs. The problem comes in during his historical survey he double talks the idea of action and mind i.e. supporting Brentano and also a few pages later supporting Von Mises the author of Human Action. I think because this was originally a "talk" he could get away with this, but when you read the paper, a lot of statements do not add up and I would say that Gordon, is purposefully hazy so as not to be pinned down. It seems more like a Sophist than a Misean. The paper itself is about 20 pages long.

from Gordon...since any proposition is verifiable the negation of any proposition is falsifiable. But a
proposition's negation is of course also a proposition. Its negation is then falsifiable. Since this negation is identical with the proposition from which we started, we conclude that any proposition is both verifiable and falsifiable.

[John Sharp]

This is a great little read. Written in a lecture, oral, format it hits the main points, but breezes past the minutiae that could have been presented in this type of book. Short and to the point, the book gives a coherent presentation of the main philosophical themes influencing Austrian Economic Theory from some well know philosophers and from some that you have never heard of. With this book and some self-study you would find yourself with a great appreciation of not only economic development, but also political development over the last 175 years.