This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Knudsen, C. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Alfred schutz, Austrian Economists and the Knowledge Problem

Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy, Solbjergvej 3, DK-2000 Frederiksberg C, Denmark ck.ivs{at}cbs.dk

The Austrian School of Economics has always taken a deep interest in methodological issues, and has used its methodological re. ections to build substantive theories towards explaining the role of knowledge in economic life. This ‘double’ interest for knowledge within the Austrian School can be traced back at least to Alfred Schutz’s 1932 thesis The Phenomenology of the Social World, which was written within the context of the Ludwig von Mises’ seminar group. A central idea in this thesis is that conceptualizations in the social sciences are of a second-order nature, since they build on the conceptualizations already formed by social actors in their everyday lives about other social actors. In this article I try to trace how Alfred Schutz’s writings on scienti.c and everyday knowledge were in.uenced by and in turn in.uenced Austrian economists, including Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Oskar Morgenstern, and Fritz Machlup. Furthermore, I raise the question of why Alfred Schutz himself as well as Fritz Machlup took an apologetic stance towards neoclassical economics, while Friedrich Hayek and Oskar Morgenstern were much more critical of the orthodoxy. In answering this question I argue that while Schutz and Machlup both defended equilibrium economics based on a conventionalist–instrumentalist view, Hayek and to some degree Morgenstern proposed to build more process-oriented models relying on a realist view of scienti.c explanations.

Key Words: equilibrium and process model • ideal type • knowledge problem • rational choice

Rationality and Society, Vol. 16, No. 1, 45-89 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1043463104036622


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?