Blog of Bile Book Club - Human Action - Forewords, Introduction, Chapter 1
Posted on June 1st, 2008 by bosco Categories and Tags: Ludwig von Mises, Mises Institute, Austrian economics, Bettina B. Greaves, Bile Book Club, book club, economics, Entertainment, human action, MisesOK, here is what I’m going to try to do. I’ll give what I feel is an objective and brief summary of what I read, set up the goal for next week and we’ll use the comment area for discussion. Please help me revise the summary in the comment area and join in the discussion.
Fourth Edition Forward:
Bettina B. Greaves appears to be an economics scholar affiliated with the Austrian school who edited this edition. I couldn’t find out much other info about her (him?). The forward does a nice job summing up the gist of the book and references things we won’t hit for weeks. It’s nice to know where it’s going.
Third Edition Forward:
Contains some updates and thank you’s by Mr. Mises. He talks about his usage of the terms psychology and liberal and mentions how nicely the book is bound. Too bad I’m reading it online.
Chapter 1 - Acting Man
- Action is defined as something someone does consciously and purposefully.
- It is easy to distinguish between conscious and unconscious action.
- Actions are measurable.
- We can’t get too mired down in worrying about what caused the actions or tacking value judgments onto those actions.
- People often act to decrease their uneasiness but human goals are very complex.
- There is a bunch of things other economists and scientists do that I’m not going to do.
- Without causality we couldn’t function in the world so it is fair to assume that most humans use the idea of causality to interact with other humans.
Next Installment: Both Forewords, Introduction, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 for Sunday 6/14. Once you finish Chapter 1 feel free to add your input to this thread of comments.
15 Responses to “Blog of Bile Book Club - Human Action - Forewords, Introduction, Chapter 1”
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June 1st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I’d recommend tagging each of the book club entries with "book club" so they are easily searchable. I’ve gone and added it to this one.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 am
Ah, I didn’t even know there was such a tag. I thought I looked. I’ll get it in the future.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:23 am
Oh, tags not categories. I see.
Anyway here is my subjective thoughts on what I read:
The tone and style of the text isn’t that terrible. Sure there are big words, but it’s no Verblen, which means you can get through it pretty quick. I found I strongly disagreed with the premise of the book as described in the Fourth Edition foreword and thought to myself, "Damn, this is going to be a long book." Surprisingly I found I didn’t dislike Chapter One nearly as much as the foreword made me think I would.
I like how Mises stated that science is continual progress. He allows for a change in his views as science progresses which is nice. I don’t agree with his clear distinction between conscious and subconscious and I know recent science is on my side. It’s too bad he’s not still alive to follow some of the changes in neuroscience. I like his idea of how understanding human action requires one to begin with faith in a metaphysical axiom and go from there.
Finally, my favorite part was his couple of sentences about how his analysis doesn’t work for devout Buddhists.
June 2nd, 2008 at 7:54 am
I only got through the foreword and introduction but I have to agree with your analysis. I like the physicist approach to economics. Just a pure observation of means to achieve ends without placing any value judgment on the ends specifically.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:18 am
He went in ‘73 so I don’t think he was ignorant of more modern neuroscience though I don’t know how much has changed since then. I don’t agree he separates the two… he’s just not concerned with "the forces and factors that impel a man toward a definite action."
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:34 am
Speaking of tags and categories. I’m working on blog of bile 2.0 in a way. I’ve purchased a new domain and new hosting. I hope to transfer everything in the next couple weeks. I first need to finish up my theme changes and make sure the plugins I want to use and whatnot work. At some point I will have to shut down landofbile.com to transfer it over. I’ll be sure to post when this will be occurring.
So with tags and categories… I’m likely going to move most of the categories to tags. If it’s easy to do anyway. Ideally we’ll have just a few categories and lots of tags. Not lots of categories.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
@invisipunk
Good point about the non-judgment thing. I also really liked that.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
@bile
I think he makes the division pretty clear with this quote:
Granted it’s right before the part that you referenced, but I think he makes the point and then goes on to explain that he’s not too concerned with the factors that impel people.
As far as neuroscience, there have been recent advances. You and I tend to butt heads a lot on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary action. I have a feeling I’m going to butt heads with Mises on it too. We’ll see.
As far as bile 2.0, I don’t think that’s nearly enough of a version jump. How about bile 11.1, bile X or bile Kappa. I agree with you on the categories and tags thing. I’m always scared to make new tags because I think they will get out of hand. For my library I originally didn’t use tags and I’m just starting to get into fiction and non-fiction tags.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 am
Sorry, guys I got busy at work last week and spent the weekend (the weather was actually nice!) outside and then inside watching baseball. I’ll try to catch up this week. Really. The dog ate my homework.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
@beetlbumjl and invisipunk
It’s fine if we didn’t get through Chapter One. Do you want to bump back the date for up to Chapter Two, say two Sundays from now? I’ll be at porcfest that weekend but I could post something Sunday night as soon as I get back. Also if you want to take turns doing the summary, that’s cool with me. If you want me to do them all that’s fine too.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
bosco, you said conscious and subconscious. He said conscious and unconscious. He’s clearly separating conscious, subconscious and unconscious behavior as far as I’m following. I don’t see him denying one can effect the other two just that it’s fairly clear in general which is which. At least conscious vs unconscious.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
@bile
Yeah, you’re right he is talking about conscious vs. unconscious. I realized that after I posted the message but then became real busy at work. I’ve done some looking into how to differentiate between conscious, subconscious and unconscious and I found this. It seems helpful. It also talks about some cool, fairly recent research.
June 2nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
yea two weeks sounds good to me.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Two weeks it is. I’ll update the article.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
You want to use tags more freely. Categories are more broad. If you looks up tags and categories online you’ll find lots of crap. I figure it’s easier to type out tags than look up the categories.