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Subtitle: An essay on method (Studies in economic theory) Written toward the end of Mises’s life, his last monograph, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, returned to economics as a science based on human action. Mises believed that, since the publication of Human Action, economists and scientists alike had misinterpreted the idea of economics as a science by deeming it epistemological positivism – that they believed that the “science” basis was still more rooted in philosophy than in actual science. In “The Ultimate Foundation”, von Mises returns to one of his central concerns: the foundation of economic theories. According to von Mises, the principles of economic thought are “a priori.” In fact, they are a “subset” of more basic principles of human action. Von Mises called the study of human action “praxiology.” According to Mises, the a priori categories “are the mental equipment by dint of which man is able to think and to experience and thus to acquire knowledge.” It is these categories which provide order and regularity to man’s understanding. The category of human action is: “Man acts because he is dissatisfied with the state of affairs as it prevails in the absence of his intervention.” Further axioms follow logically from this axiom.  The principles of economics are therefore deductive. On the other hand, the principles of the physical sciences are inductive. The error of positivism is to apply the principles of the physical sciences to economics, where they are not applicable. Economics is closer to mathematics than it is to chemistry. In this volume, Mises argued that economics is a science because human action is a natural order of life and that it is the actions of humans that determine markets and capital decisions. Since Mises believed these links could be proven scientifically, he concluded that economics, with its basis on that human action, is indeed a science in its own right and not an ideology or a metaphysical doctrine. What has been described as his most passionate work, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science brings together all of the themes from Mises’s previous works to proclaim what Israel Kirzner calls “the true character of economics.” It’s hard to summarize this book. Von Mises deals with a large number of topics in a relatively small number of pages. These include evolution, Marxism, theism, the use of statistics, and methodological individualism. Yet what shines through is von Mises’ love of economics and his belief that the teachings of economics – which is to say free enterprise – is the key to increasing man’s standard of living and promoting social cooperation.