Economics is not unique in requiring the adoption of certain assumptions as a pre-condition for using the mode of understanding it offers. Every science is founded on propositions that form the basis rather than the outcome of its investigations. For example, physics takes for granted the reality of the physical world it examines. Any piece of physical evidence it might offer has weight only if it is already assumed that the physical world is real. Nor can physicists demonstrate their assumption that the members of a sequence of similar physical measurements will bear some meaningful and consistent relationship to each other. Any test of a particular type of measurement must pre-suppose the validity of some other way of measuring against which the form under examination is to be judged.
Why do we accept that when we place a yardstick alongside one object, finding that the object stretches across half the length of the yardstick, and then place it alongside another object, which only stretches to a quarter its length, that this means the first object is longer than the second? Certainly not by empirical testing, for any such tests would be meaningless unless we already grant the principle in question. In mathematics we don't come to know that 2 + 2 always equals 4 by repeatedly grouping two items with two others and counting the resulting collection. That would only show that our answer was correct in the instances we examined — given the assumption that counting works! — but we believe it is universally true. Biology pre-supposes that there is a significant difference between living things and inert matter, and if it denied that difference it would also be denying its own validity as a special science.
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