Thymology

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In praxeology, thymology is the study of those human aspects that precede or cause purposeful human behavior. [1]

Praxeology or praxiology is the study of human action, based on the notion that humans engage in purposeful behavior, as opposed to reflexive behavior like sneezing and unintentional behavior.

Contents

Praxeology and thymology

In his Theory and History, Ludwig von Mises wrote on the relationship between praxeology and thymology:

Ludwig von Mises Austrian-American economist

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian School economist, historian, and sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on behalf of classical liberalism. He is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action.

[Thymology] is what a man knows about the way in which people value different conditions, about their wishes and desires and their plans to realize these wishes and desires. It is the knowledge of the social environment in which a man lives and acts or, with historians, of a foreign milieu about which he has learned by studying special sources. [2] Why one man chooses water and another man wine is a thymological (or, in traditional terminology, psychological) problem. But it is of no concern to praxeology and economics. The subject matter of praxeology and of that part of it which is so far best developed─economics─is action as such and not the motives that impel a man to aim at definite ends. [3]

History

Von Mises wrote:

Thymology is a branch of history or, as Collingwood formulated it, it belongs in 'the sphere of history.' It deals with the mental activities of men that determine their actions. It deals with the mental processes that result in a definite kind of behavior, with the reactions of the mind to the conditions of the individual's environment. It deals with something invisible and intangible that cannot be perceived by the methods of the natural sciences. But the natural sciences must admit that this factor must be considered as real also from their point of view, as it is a link in a chain of events that result in changes in the sphere the description of which they consider as the specific field of their studies. [4]

Action (philosophy) something an agent can do or perform

In philosophy, an action is that which is done by an agent. In common speech, the term is often used interchangeably with the term "behaviour". However, in the philosophy of action, behavioural sciences, and the social sciences, a distinction is made: behavior is automatic and reflexive activity, while action is an intentional, purposive, conscious and subjectively meaningful activity. Thus, things like running or throwing a ball is an instance of action; it involves intention, a goal, and a bodily movement guided by the agent. On the other hand, catching a cold is not considered an action because it is something which happens to a person, not something done by one.

See also

Behavioral economics academic discipline

Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the economic decisions of individuals and institutions and how those decisions vary from those implied by classical theory.

Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions: by the tractability of the decision problem, the cognitive limitations of the mind, and the time available to make the decision. Decision-makers, in this view, act as satisficers, seeking a satisfactory solution rather than an optimal one.

Cognitive science interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition. Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior, with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process, and transform information. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. The fundamental concept of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."

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References

  1. ↑ Lavoie, Don and Storr, Virgil Henry, "Distinction or Dichotomy: Rethinking the Line between Thymology and Praxeology" (January 7, 2011). Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 24, No. 2, p. 213, 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1973646
  2. ↑ Mises, Ludwig von (1957). Theory and History. New Haven, USA.: Yale University Press. p. 266. ISBN   9780865975699.
  3. ↑ Mises, Ludwig von (1957). Theory and History. New Haven, USA.: Yale University Press. pp. 271–272. ISBN   9780865975699.
  4. ↑ von Mises, Ludwig "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science"
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