Oakeshott and Mises on understanding human action.

• Author: Callahan, Gene
• Position: Michael Oakeshott, Ludwig von Mises

Michael Oakeshott and Ludwig von Mises were arguably two of the twentieth century's most profound theorists of human action. Unarguably, both of them regarded the nature of the social sciences in a way that differed significantly from the positivist views prevalent during their lives. One result of their outsider status is the scores of scholars, popular political commentators, and politicians who consider one or the other of the two thinkers as a--or even the--major influence on their intellectual development. Another outcome has been the academic mainstream's neglect of their distinctive--or, as their critics might say, idiosyncratic--views. If one attempted to gauge either Mises's or Oakeshott's influence by tallying citations to his work in academic journals, one would conclude that it has been slight. However, most scholars cited more frequently have not had think tanks or scholarly associations established to focus on their thought, well-attended conferences devoted to discussing their ideas, and dozens of books commenting on some aspect of their work.

I am not aware of any comparative studies of Mises and Oakeshott, despite the compatibility of many of their views. The small overlap between those who are students of Mises's thought--typically economists and libertarians--and those who are versed in Oakeshott's ideas--most often political theorists, philosophers of history, and political conservatives--is probably the most straightforward explanation for the lack of comparative studies.

I maintain, however, that the social theorizing of each of these thinkers provides an illuminating perspective in which to regard the other's ideas. We find, for example, that each arrived quite independently at very similar answers to fundamental questions about the nature of the social sciences, such as: the a priori nature of the postulates of human action; the characteristics that differentiate genuinely historical thought from other ways of regarding the past; the inherent methodological difference between theorizing about unintelligent processes and theorizing about intelligent activity; the notion that statistical studies of social phenomena can produce only partial explanations, which must be completed by the application of historical understanding to their findings; and the central importance of the meaning an agent assigns to his own circumstances and actions for the study of human conduct. Even when Oakeshott's and Mises's intellectual explorations brought them to the same terminus, however, they usually traveled there by different routes. Comparing their presuppositions may help us to uncover a common ground for theorizing about human action, which can be arrived at from distinct philosophical points of departure. Moreover, scholars studying Oakeshott's works will see some of his ideas from a new vantage point if they contrast them with Mises's works, and vice-versa.

Furthermore, despite their broad areas of agreement, on some topics Mises and Oakeshott reached quite different conclusions. They disagreed about whether human experience is composed of fundamentally distinct modes of theorizing; about the relationship between rationality and practice--Mises regarded reason as the basis of all human activity, whereas Oakeshott saw it as abstracted from existing practices; and about the philosophical justification for holding that universal truths about human conduct can be discovered deductively. That Mises and Oakeshott arrived at similar views on the nature of the social sciences, despite having launched their inquiries from different philosophical perspectives, suggests that their common conclusions do not depend on any particular metaphysical or epistemological stance. Nonetheless, contemplating their philosophical differences may spur both "Misesians" and "Oakeshottians" to explore more deeply the ontologies underlying each of their approaches.

Because adequate consideration of all the points just mentioned probably requires a book-length treatment, I consider in this article only Mises's and Oakeshott's views on the fundamental nature of human action; on how, as a result of that nature, theorizing about human conduct differs from theorizing about mechanical processes; and on what that difference implies about the essential character of the social sciences.

The Postulates of Human Action

Perhaps the central thread woven through Mises's work, most fully explicated in his magnum opus, Human Action, is his contention that we can derive a number of universal principles of action from the mere recognition of its purposeful nature. The theorist of conduct proceeds by exploiting the essential form of action itself in order "to render manifest and obvious what was hidden and unknown before." His efforts yield new knowledge even though his discoveries "are logically derived from the premises [of human action] and were already contained in them" (Mises [1949] 1998, 38). Exploring the premises of human action to draw out their implications is the primary research method for theorizing about it, composing the discipline that Mises called praxeology. (1) For Mises, economics is only one of the subdisciplines of praxeology, albeit the one most fully developed.

I have not been able to find any evidence that Oakeshott was familiar with Mises's work. No references to Human Action appear in On Human Conduct, the work that contains most of Oakeshott's published reflections on praxeology. (He does not follow Mises in calling the study of human action praxeology, and he uses conduct where Mises would use action, but those differences pertain only to terminology and have no theoretical significance.) Yet Oakeshott's approach to theorizing about human action is remarkably similar to Mises's, as are many of the postulates he proposes as underlying the world of conduct. To illustrate just how close their ideas are in this area, I juxtapose passages from Oakeshott's On Human Conduct and On History with similar passages from Mises's Human Action.

At the beginning of their consideration of human conduct, both Mises and Oakeshott assert that an agent always decides the action he will initiate in the light of his own interpretation of the circumstances he confronts. (The question of the extent to which reality itself is formed by human interpretation is an entirely different matter; what is relevant for theorizing about action is whether or not an agent's reading of his situation accurately reflects "objective reality"--whatever that might be taken to mean, his own reading is all that is available to him when making a choice.) As Oakeshott puts it, "The starting place of doing is ... the agent's own understanding of his situation, what it means to him" (1975, 37). Similarly, Mises writes, "We cannot approach our subject if we disregard the meaning which acting man attaches to the situation" ([1949] 1998, 26).

Before a potential agent undertakes any action, he must feel that some aspect of his life invites improvement. Oakeshott expresses that condition when he says, "An agent's understanding of his situation is a diagnosis: that is, a verdict in which it is recognized to be in some respect unsatisfactory, wanting, amiss, or objectionable, and therefore to suggest alteration" (1975, 38). And in Mises we find: "Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory" ([1949] 1998, 13). Therefore, the initiation of any action is always motivated by the hope of achieving some envisioned satisfaction. For Oakeshott, "In acting, an agent imagines, wishes for, and seeks to achieve a satisfaction" (1975, 39). Or, as Mises says, "[An agent's] mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state" ([1949] 1998, 13).

Therefore, human action is always concerned with a future state of affairs; the present is taken into account in that it is read as a field of potentiality for possible futures. Mises writes, "Action is always directed toward the future; it is essentially and necessarily always a planning and acting for a better future. Its aim is always to render future conditions more satisfactory than they would be without the interference of action" ([1949] 1998, 100). And according to Oakeshott, "With every want we evoke a future, and in every action we seek a future condition of things, uncertain of achievement and sure only of its transience" (1983, 13).

However, dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and the picturing of a preferred alternative do not suffice as grounds for acting. An agent must also be able to conceive some means by which he might successfully alter what he finds unsatisfactory about his situation. Oakeshott says, "But, since it is his situation, this unsatisfactoriness is recognized not merely as a defect but as a defect unacceptable to himself, and since he is an agent, he recognizes it as inviting a response of which he is to be the author" (1975, 38). And Mises writes: "But to make a man act, uneasiness and the image of a more satisfactory state alone are not sufficient. A third condition is required: the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness. In the absence of this condition no action is feasible" ([1949] 1998, 14).

As the preceding quotes indicate, both Mises and Oakeshott contend that the agent's own interpretation of his situation is of central importance for theorizing about human action. That view has been criticized as unscientific and inherently subjective because interpretations clearly cannot be subject to objective measurement. One suggested alternative is to search for explanations of people's choices in their biological makeup. Mises and Oakeshott, however, offer similar critiques of attempts to posit organic "causes" for the concrete choices of specific actors. Oakeshott writes, "There may be organic conditions which may make...