Praxiology (New Brunswick, N.J.)

Praxiology is like the prose of Moliere's "The Prodigious Snob: "everybody uses it but few can define it. That task fell to the famous Polish philosopher and logician, Tadeusz Kotarbinski. He noted that praxiology deals with doing and working from the point of view of effectiveness. It has three components: "analysis "of concepts involving purposive actions; "critique "of modes of action from the viewpoint of efficiency; and "normative "advisory aspects in recommendations for increasing efficiency.

Increasingly, praxiology has focused on the social sciences, since both have a strong sense of knowledge and its applications. In this encyclopedic effort, the editors, aided by a remarkable group of international scholars, convened a meeting to examine fundamental issues in the theory of human action, the nature of economics, and theoretical issues in such praxiological disciplines as design, accounting, market mechanisms, management, and planning.

This is a breakthrough volume in its combination and permutation of fault lines in the logic of scientific inquiry and the newer aspects of social action. It is graced with pioneering, new papers on "Methodological Foundations of Economics" by Herbert A. Simon; "Appropriate Methods for the Studies of the Economy" by Kenneth E. Boulding; "The Role of the Uncertainty Principle in Economics" by George J. Klir; "Problems of Market Forecasting" by Donald N. McCloskey; "Rights as Social Practices" by Beth J. Singer; and "The Crisis of Professional Knowledge" by Donald A. Schon.

The volume thoroughly integrates European, British, and American scholarship in advanced areas of philosophy and decision-theory. Contributions cover a broad area of economics: from criticism of institutional economics to examination of the role of induction in economic forecasting. Major figures examined include Menger, von Mises, Hayek, and Keynes among others, concluding with an attempt to integrate praxiology and economics in a larger theory of the social and historical life cycle. In its unifying potentials "Praxiology and the Philosophy of Economics "is a landmark of scholarship.