A comment on ‘the extraordinary claim of praxeology’ by Professor Gutiérrez

Ludvig von Mises and the Austrian School of Praxeological Economics do make a claim that can only be considered extraordinary, considering the type of methodology that now pervades our social science Establishment. And the claim is that there is economic knowledge that can be both known with apodictic certainty, and be of great usefulness in understanding the world in which we live. Prof. Gutiérrez, defending the accepted view that knowledge can either be known with apodictic certainty, or have usefulness for understanding the real world, but not both, attacks praxeological allegations to the contrary, and is in turn, criticized by the author. Under contention are the status of the a priori nature of the category of human action, the basic premise of praxeology, as well as several other claims:

1. Human action can only be undertaken by individual actors
2. Action necessarily requires a desired end and a technological plan
3. Human action necessarily aims at improving the future
4. Human action necessarily involves a choice among competing ends
5. All means are necessarily scarce
6. The actor must rank his alternative ends
7. Choices continually change, both because of changed ends as well as means
8. Labor power and nature logically predate, and were used to form, capital
9. Technological knowledge is a factor of production

This exchange involves not so much specific disagreements between Gutiérrez and the author as it does the different world views of two competing philosophies of social science. To put it in its historical perspective, what we have here can be characterized as evolving from the debates concerning the possibility of synthetic a priori statements, first raised by Immanuel Kant and David Hume, but applied to the conceptual foundations of modern economics.     

Preference extension rules for ranking sets of alternatives with a fixed cardinality

This paper analyzes the problem of deriving a ranking of fixed-cardinality subsets of a universal set from a given ranking of the elements of this universal set. Only subsets with a given number of elements are being ranked, which is where the approach in this paper differs from the literature on extension rules that establish preference relations on the power set of the universal set. Common examples for areas where such preferences on subsets with a fixed cardinality are needed are elections of committees of a given size, many-to-one matchings, and decision problems under ignorance. The main result of the paper is a characterization of a class oflexicographic rank-ordered rules by means of two axioms, namely, aresponsiveness condition used in the matching literature and a well-knownneutrality requirement which ensures that the names of the alternatives are irrelevant for the ranking of the sets.     

Priming the sexual system: Implicit versus explicit activation

We investigated implicit versus explicit activation of the sexual system using a priming paradigm in which sexual slides were preceded by either sexual or neutral primes. In the first experiment, primes were made inaccessible to conscious cognitive elaboration. Identification of sexual targets was facilitated by sexual primes, indicating that sexual representations in memory can be activated automatically. In the second experiment, in which primes were presented at a conscious level, identification of sexual targets was decelerated by sexual primes. Primes elicited subjective sexual arousal in Experiment 2 only, demonstrating that the activation of subjective experience requires conscious cognitive elaboration. With the addition of a sexually specific physiological measure, to be constructed to measure initial genital responses, this paradigm may help elucidate activational mechanisms of sexual response.     

Youth Program Quality Survey: Youth Assessment of Program Quality

The Youth Program Quality survey, a 24-item survey of youth participant perceptions of program quality, based on program elements identified by the National Research Council (NRC) and Institute of Medicine, was developed and piloted with 614 younger teens (ages 10–13 years) and 486 older teens (ages 14–17 years) who attended 4-H camps and conferences. Evidence is presented for content and construct validity. In addition, the overall instrument demonstrated high reliability, as measured by Cronbach's alpha, generally ranging from .70 to .96, and moderate subscale reliability of .60 or higher on four factors in the younger sample (α=.60 or higher on four factors in the older sample). Results are discussed in terms of goodness of fit to the National Research Council model, the significance of youth voice in assessment of program quality, developmental differences in perceptions of quality, and programming design. Recommendations are offered for practice, research, and policy.     

The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Covered Teenage Employment

Unlike previous studies on the minimum wage, which focused on its effect on total teenage employment, we examine its effect on covered employment. A covered job was defined to be one paying the minimum wage or more. Using contemporary wages to classify workers this way may inflate the estimated effect of minimum wages on covered employment. To avoid this bias, covered jobs are identified using a logit procedure run over years in which the minimum age was not increased. We find that minimum wages reduced covered employment significantly more than total employment. We also show that covered employment may be overstated in the period following an increase in the minimum wage.     

Teaching the Child Perspective in Social Work Education: Ethical Principles and Classroom Strategies

Aimed at graduate and undergraduate social work instructors, this article identifies the problem of inadequate attention to children in social work education in the US. The authors argue that social work ethics require social work educators to address children as a vulnerable population. They argue that children will be more central in social work education if instructors adopt a child perspective defined by three knowledge categories, development, well‐being and hope, that serve as reference points in teaching. A triangular strategy of position, attitude and action is provided to guide the day‐to‐day use of a child perspective in the classroom. The authors examine sources of the problem, describe its effects on students' education and future practice and provide classroom examples and teaching techniques.