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Mises, Ludwig THEORY AND HISTORY An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution Copyright 1985 by Margit von Mises. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher by Ludwig von Mises (Auburn: AL, The Mises Institute), except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in connection with a review. with new preface by Murray N. Rothbard Copyright 1957 by Yale University Press. Reprinted 1969 by Arlington House, Publishes, in an unaltered and unabridged edition. THE LUDWIG VON MISES INSTITUTE This online edition, The Mises Institute 2001, has retained the pagination Auburn, Alabama of the 1985 edition (Auburn: The Mises Institute) and the original 1957 www.mises.org edition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press) for purposes of citation. Contents CHAPTER 3. THE QUEST FOR ABSOLUTE VALUES 9. The Issue (p. 35) Preface by Murray N. Rothbard (p. xi) 10. Conflicts with Society (p. 37) 11. A Remark on the Alleged Medieval Unanimity (p. 42) 12. The Idea of Natural Law (p. 44) INTRODUCTION 13. Revelation (p. 49) 1. Methodological Dualism (p. 1) 14. Atheistic Intuition (p. 50) 1. Economics and Metaphysics (p. 3) 15. The Idea of Justice (p. 51) 2. Regularity and Prediction (p. 4) 16. The Utilitarian Doctrine Restated (p. 55) 3. The Concept of the Laws of Nature (p. 5) 17. On Aesthetic Values (p. 61) 4. The Limitations of Human Knowledge (p. 8) 18. The Historical Significance of the Quest for Absolute Values (p. 5. Regularity and Choosing (p. 9) 63) 6. Means and Ends (p. 12) CHAPTER 4. THE NEGATION OF VALUATION PART ONE. VALUE PART TWO. DETERMINSM AND MATERIALISM CHAPTER 1. JUDGMENTS OF VALUE CHAPTER 5. DETERMINISM AND ITS CRITICS 1. Judgments of Value and Propositions of Existence (p. 19) 19. Determinism (p. 73) 2. Valuation and Action (p. 20) 20. The Negation of Ideological Factors (p. 75) 3. The Subjectivity of Valuation (p. 22) 21. The Free-Will Controversy (p. 76) 4. The Logical and Syntactical Structure of Judgments of Value (p. 22. Foreordination and Fatalism (p. 78) 23) 23. Determinism and Penology (p. 82) CHAPTER 2. KNOWLEDGE AND VALUE 24. Determinism and Statistics (p. 84) 25. The Autonomy of the Sciences of Human Action (p. 92) 5. The Bias Doctrine (p. 26) 6. Common Weal versus Special Interests (p. 28) CHAPTER 6. MATERIALISM 7. Economics and Value (p. 32) 26. Two Varieties of Materialism (p. 94) 8. Bias and Intolerance (p. 34) 27. The Secretion Analogy (p. 97) 28. The Political Implications of Materialism (p. 99) v vi CHAPTER 7. DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM CHAPTER 10. HISTORICISM 29. Dialectics and Marxism (p. 102) 47. The Meaning of Historicism (p. 198) 30. The Material Productive Forces (p. 106) 48. The Rejection of Economics (p. 205) 31. The Class Struggle (p. 112) 49. The Quest for Laws of Historical Change (p. 210) 32. The Ideological Impregnation of Thought (p. 122) 50. Historicist Relativism (p. 214) 33. The Conflict of Ideologies (p. 130) 51. Dissolving History (p. 219) 34. Ideas and Interests (p. 133) 52. Undoing History (p. 227) 35. The Class Interests of the Bourgeoisie (p. 142) 53. Undoing Economic History (p. 234) 36. The Critics of Marxism (p. 147) CHAPTER 11. THE CHALLENGE OF SCIENTISM 37. Marxian Materialism and Socialism (p. 155) CHAPTER 8. PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 54. Positivism and Behaviorism (p. 240) 55. The Collectivist Dogma (p. 250) 38. The Theme of History (p. 159) 56. The Concept of the Social Sciences (p. 256) 39. The Theme of the Philosophy of History (p. 162) 57. The Nature of Mass Phenomena (p. 259) 40. The Difference between the Point of View of History and That of Philosophy of History (p. 166) CHAPTER 12. PSYCHOLOGY AND THYMOLOGY 41. Philosophy of History and the Idea of God (p. 171) 42. Activistic Determinism and Fatalistic Determinism (p. 177) 58. Naturalistic Psychology and Thymology (p. 264) 59. Thymology and Praxeology (p. 271) 60. Thymology as a Historical Discipline (p. 272) PART THREE. EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF 61. History and Fiction (p. 274) HISTORY 62. Rationalization (p. 280) 63. Introspection (p. 283) CHAPTER 9. THE CONCEPT OF HISTORICAL INDIVIDUALITY CHAPTER 13. MEANING AND USE OF THE STUDY OF 43. The Ultimate Given of History (p. 183) HISTORY 44. The Role of the Individual in History (p. 184) 64. The Why of History (p. 285) 45. The Chimera of the Group Mind (p. 188) 65. The Historical Situation (p. 286) 46. Planning History (p. 195) 66. History of the Remote Past (p. 289) 67. Falsifying History (p. 291) 68. History and Humanism (p. 293) 69. History and the Rise of Aggressive Nationalism (p. 296) vii viii 70. History and Judgments of Value (p. 298) CHAPTER 14. THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL FEATURES OF HISTORY 71. Prediction in the Natural Sciences (p. 303) 72. History and Prediction (p. 305) 73. The Specific Understanding of History (p. 309) 74. Thymological Experience (p. 312) 75. Real Types and Ideal Types (p. 315) PART FOUR. THE COURSE OF HISTORY CHAPTER 15. PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF HISTORY 76. Philosophies of History and Philosophical Interpretations of History (p. 323) 77. Environmentalism (p. 324) 78. The Egalitarians' Interpretation of History (p. 328) 79. The Racial Interpretation of History (p. 332) 80. The Secularism of Western Civilization (p. 337) 81. The Rejection of Capitalism by Antisecularism (p. 340) CHAPTER 16. PRESENT-DAY TRENDS AND THE FUTURE 1. The Reversal of the Trend toward Freedom (p. 347) 2. The Rise of the Ideology of Equality in Wealth and Income (p. 351) 3. The Chimera of a Perfect State of Mankind (p. 362) 4. The Alleged Unbroken Trend toward Progress (p. 367) 5. The Suppression of "Economic" Freedom (p. 370) 6. The Uncertainty of the Future (p. 378) INDEX ix x economics, and providing scintillating critiques of such fallacious Preface by Murray N. Rothbard alternatives as historicism, scientism, and Marxian dialectical materialism. Ludwig von Mises published many books and articles in his long and It might be thought that, despite its great importance, Theory and History productive life, each of them making important contributions to the theory has not made its mark because, in this age of blind academic specialization, and application of economic science. But there stand out among them four economics will have nothing to do with anything that smacks of the towering masterpieces, immortal monuments to the work of the greatest philosophic. Certainly, hyper-specialization plays a part, but in the last few economist and scientist of human action of our century. The first, which years, interest in methodology and the basic underpinnings of economics has established Mises in the front rank of economists, was The Theory of Money blossomed, and one would think that at least the specialists in this area and Credit (1912), which for the first time integrated the theory of money would find much to discuss and absorb in this book. And economists are and the theory of relative prices, and outlined his later theory of the business surely not so far gone in jargon and muddled writing that they would fail to cycle. Mises' second great work was Socialism (1922), which provided the respond to Mises' lucid and sparkling prose. definitive, comprehensive critique of socialism and demonstrated that a socialist order could not calculate economically. The third was his It is likely, instead, that the neglect of Theory and History has more to do stupendous treatise Human Action (1949), which set forth an entire structure with the content of its philosophical message. For while many people are of economics and analysis of acting man. All three of these works have aware of the long and lone struggle that Ludwig von Mises waged against made their mark in economics, and have been featured in the " Austrian" statism and on behalf of laissez-faire, few realize that there is far greater revival that has flowered in the United States over the past decade. resistance in the economics profession to Mises' methodology than there is to his politics. Adherence to the free market, after all, is now not uncommon But Mises' fourth and last great work, Theory and History (1957), has made among economists (albeit not with Mises' unerring consistency), but few are remarkably little impact, and has rarely been cited even by the young ready to adopt the characteristically Austrian method which Mises economists of the recent Austrian revival. It remains by far the most systematized and named "praxeology." neglected masterwork of Mises. And yet it provides the philosophical backstop and elaboration of the philosophy underlying Human Action. It is At the heart of Mises and praxeology is the concept with which he Mises' great methodological work, explaining the basis of his approach to appropriately begins Theory and History: methodological dualism, the crucial insight that human beings must be considered and analyzed in a way xi xii and with a methodology that differs radically from the analysis of stones, “real” science, economics must treat individuals not as unique creatures, planets, atoms, or molecules. Why? Because, quite simply, it is the essence each with his or her own goals and choices, but as homogenous and of human beings that they act, that they have goals and purposes, and that therefore predictable bits of "data. " One reason orthodox economic theory they try to achieve those goals. Stones, atoms, planets, have no goals or has always had great difficulty with the crucial concept of the entrepreneur preferences; hence, they do not choose among alternative courses of action. is that each entrepreneur is clearly and obviously unique; and neoclassical Atoms and planets move, or are moved; they cannot choose, select paths of economics cannot handle individual uniqueness.
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