Recently, I’ve been spending some time studying praxeology, trying to gain a deeper understanding of Austrian methodology. I’m currently reading Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method and Chapter II of Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action, which deals with the “epistemological problems of the sciences of human action”. And these are everything else that I can find on the subject.
- FEE on Praxeology.
- FEE on Methodology.
- Mises Media on Praxeology.
- Mises Literature on Praxeology, Methodology, Methodological Foundations.
- And, finally, Roderick Long’s website on Praxeology.
In addition, I’m reading The Mind and The Market (by Jerry Z. Muller) which is a fascinating account of the history “not of economic ideas”, as the author stressed, but “of ideas about the capitalist economy”. It’s been an interesting read so far, about the history of Jews and usury; I can’t wait for the later chapters about Voltaire, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Weber, Schumpeter, Keynes, among others.
While ‘Human Action’ is definitely a great book when it comes to understanding the Austrian methodology and practices, I highly recommend that you give ‘Man, Economy and State’ a read, as well. I found that Rothbard was far better at explaining the Austrian concepts of production, price and capital theory than Mises. Since those are the most complicated aspects of Austrian economics (for most people, anyway), having a simpler and more thorough resource is preferable. Praxeology in and of itself is really a simple principle, however, the logical deductions of such can be quite difficult to understand in practice.
Yes, I’ll definitely give Man, Economy, and State a thorough reading someday. But, for now, I just want to learn as much as I can on praxeology, methodology, and the underlying epistemology.