I. How do we know about the outer world — or reality, for that matter? Where does our knowledge about it come from? The attempt to answer these questions leads to epistemology , the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin, scope, and validity of human knowledge. In the epistemological debate, there are two archetypal and actually
Mathematics can sometimes make smart people dumb. Let me explain what I mean by this. I don’t mean that it is dumb not to be good at mathematics. After all, mathematics is a highly abstract and challenging discipline requiring many years (decades even) of study, and there are plenty of very smart people who have little understanding of it, and
Scott Patterson, reporter for the Wall Street Journal and author of The Quants (2010), tells the story of traders and financial engineers who used brain-twisting math and superpowered computers to pluck billions in fleeting dollars out of the market. Instead of looking at individual companies and their performance, management and competitors, they
I have a confession to make. I am a geek. I have been for years. I love reading articles on all the latest gadgets and gizmos, the new apps and software, all the hacks, and all the technological breakthroughs that happen daily. I can’t get enough of it, but I often come to find that when a tech author is reporting on certain events, he lacks a
“While flash trading can lead to sudden dips in the market, the market has proven to be quick in correcting itself.” It’s fascinating to watch footage of a trading floor on Wall Street. Here men and women spend hours with their eyes glued to computer monitors while furiously calculating trades that often yield small profits or minimal losses. In
One criticism of Austrian business-cycle theory is that it gives little insight as to what should be done to push an economy out of recession. Even accepting the premise that monetary overexpansion leads to a misallocation of capital goods, detractors claim that this says little in regards to the nature of the depression period. Leland Yeager, for
The present paper is the continuation of an intra-libertarian debate over immigration. Previous contributions to this dialogue on the open borders side include Block, 1998, 2004A, 2011; Block and Callahan, 2003; Gregory and Block, 2007. The restricted borders argument includes Hoppe 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002. Volume 22, Number 1 (2011) Block,
“Practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made.” [September 1945] What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant
«Prácticamente cada individuo tiene alguna ventaja sobre todos los demás porque posee información única de la cual se podría hacer un uso beneficioso». [Septiembre de 1945] ¿Cuál es el problema que queremos resolver cuando tratamos de construir un orden económico racional? Basándose en ciertos supuestos comunes, la respuesta es bastante simple. Si
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.