“A Priori” to Mises Means “Independent of Any Particular Time or Place”; It Does Not Imply Independence from all “Experience”

Praxeology represents an attempt to escape the nihilistic implications of both historicism and empiricism. It affirms the operation of inviolable laws within the realm of human action. It purports to establish the universal validity of these laws by deducing them from the allegedly incontestable truth that people act purposefully, the “axiom of action.” Although supposedly irrefutable, this axiom is not merely “analytic,” i.e., non-empirical or vacuous. It is based upon the reality of the pursuit of ends and the choice of means for their attainment that distinguishes all mental (and, hence, human) activity. Thus a priori to Mises means “independent of any particular time or place.” It does not imply independence from all “experience,” although it does denote independence from the sort of sensory experience that empiricism and positivism emphasize: “It rests on universal inner experience, and not simply on external experience, i.e., its evidence is reflective rather than physical.” Sense data alone, on the other hand, could not reveal to us the essential purposefulness of human actions.

—George A. Selgin, Praxeology and Understanding: An Analysis of the Controversy in Austrian Economics (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1990), 14.