Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences by Carl Menger

Author:Carl Menger [Carl Menger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61016-150-3
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 1985-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Pseudo-Historical Orientations of Research in Theoretical Economics

The historical orientation in theoretical economics does not consist in historical accessories which are added superficially to the results of the theoretical orientation of research in the field of economy.—Just as little in literary-historical studies in general and in dogmatic-historical accessories in particular.—Nor is it to be sought in the fact that only history is acknowledged as the empirical basis for theoretical research in the field of economy.—Error of specific overestimation of historical development in theoretical economics.—The desire to determine “parallelisms in economic history” is only a special orientation of theoretical research in the field of economy.—Theoretical economics is not a science of the “laws of development of economy.”—Just as little a “philosophy of history.”—Contradiction between the definitions of theoretical economics and the presentations of it in the historical school of German economists.

We have already seen that those who make the most noise emphasizing the significance of the historical point of view for the theory of economy are not infrequently the ones who fail most fundamentally to recognize its true nature, in pointing to the methodological errors of those who think they are retaining the historical point of view in theoretical economics. Actually, they are not concerned with the historical point of view in theoretical economics at all, but consider the phenomena of economy from a specifically historical standpoint, or from the standpoint of practical economies. Now, while we have presented the nature of the historical point of view, or rather, the significance of the fact which we call the development of economic phenomena, it still remains for us to mention certain methodological mistakes. They are made by those who, to be sure, retain the concept of theoretical economics, but recognize the nature of the “historical” point of view in it in postulates of research which deviate essentially from those presented above, which, indeed, are usually superficial and irrelevant for theoretical economics.

There are those who think they retain the historical point of view in theoretical economics when they embroider with all kinds of historical accessories the old theories gained from the so-called ‘“unhistorical” point of view. If one compares the representations of theoretical economics of this kind with those of an earlier, so-called “unhistorical” epoch, it is not hard to recognize that the theoretical knowledge which the two sorts of representations afford are essentially the same. The difference consists often enough only in the fact that the systematic presentation of the well-known theories of the old “unhistorical” schools is interrupted by historical digressions or is embroidered quite superficially with historical additions. Thus a composite results which is neither theory nor historical writing, and least of all a theoretical economics from the point of view of historical consideration.

But those people fall into a similar error about the nature of the historical point of view in economic theory who find it in literary-historical studies in the field of our science, or else in some special orientation of the science.

“In contrast to the absolutism of theory,” says Knies,39 “the historical conception of political economy is based on the following principle.

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