That comment was at -2 for several hours, but just now went back to 0. Judging from those two downvotes, some clarification may be in order. I think I may have sounded too confident about my unsubstantiated assertions while not being clear enough about the core issue I was attempting to raise.

What I was trying to bring up is that a school's epistemological commentary and their actual epistemological practice need not necessarily be aligned. There's nothing that says that one must know exactly what one is doing, and furthermore be able to communicate it effectively, to be competent at the task itself.

This, I believe, is the story of the Austrian school. Their actual epistemological practice is in many ways solid, but their epistemological commentary is not. All too many intelligent, scientifically-minded people reject the economic theory because the epistemological theory sounds so ridiculous or pseudoscientific. But what I'm saying is that these people are correct about the latter, but not about extending to backward to the former.

What basis does one have for rejecting the epistemological basis of the actual economic theory on the grounds that their epistemological commentary is bad? In what way does one's commentary about what one is doing have that strong of a causal connection with the success of the endeavor itself? Instead, one must let the theory itself stand or fall upon its own strength.

Rather than looking at the economic theory itself, figuring out the epistemological basis (or lack thereof), and then deciding whether it stands on firm epistemological ground, they look to the Austrians to do their research for them. This, I believe, is a mistake. Mises was bad at communicating his epistemology (though I consider it in many ways solid), and others were just plain bad on epistemology. This does not mean the economic theory is (necessarily) on shaky ground.

How did this happen? Isn't studying epistemology a tool for coming up with sound theory? Wouldn't being terrible on epistemology be a huge red flag? Yes, but the basic story is that Mises was good on epistemology, but bad at communicating it. His predecessors then read and assimilated his economic theory and thus picked up his actual epistemic habits--what he actually did in practice, his mental hygiene patterns, etc.--while misunderstanding his epistemological commentary.

The result is a bunch of people who are good on economic theory, but bad at explaining where exactly all these mental hygiene habits came from or what their epistemological significance is. You could say that they all got there sort of by accident, because they don't really understand why what they're doing is good, but that's beside the point. All that's important is that Mises was a solid thinker, and a lot of people--for whatever reason--picked up where he left off.

Austrian theory would certainly be better if a team of LW-style rationalists could enter the scene and start explaining what the Austrians have failed to. Mises and his mental hygiene habits certainly have had some momentum, but the longer this goes on--the longer the school is dominated by people who's only source of epistemological fortitude is the unconscious assimilation of an old thinker's mental habits--the worse the school will spiral away from its grounded center, until nothing is left of the previous foundation.

It's a tragic situation, to be sure. Austrian economics is as incisive and important at times as it is insane at others, and this is why I would always hesitate to identity myself as a follower of the Austrian school, despite the massive value I believe it has buried behind some of its more visible components.