In Defence of Fallible Apriorism & The Aristotelian Program for Economics
DRAFT
May 2010
This paper has been published in Nuova civiltà delle macchine, Vol. 1-2, 2011
The final version can be found here.
This paper argues that the best way to develop the economics of von Mises is along the lines of “fallible apriorism” rather than the strong program of apriorism advocated by Rothbard and his followers. This position is supported by Popper’s epistemology which can be described as “conjectural apriorism”.
Smith presented his views as a part of the Aristotelian framework that he detected in Menger’s work. This framework is practically identical to the “metaphysical research program” that Popper developed in dialogue with the physicists.
The outcome of the Popper/Smith program is a form of methodological monism that supports the main lines of the causal realist program initiated by Carl Menger.
