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Due to the famous it is often well argued that Menger’s approach to social sciences can be seen as anti-historical, as according to him pure empirical studies are insufficient to establish a firm economic theory. By suggesting that some theorems have to precede historical studies, Menger may be seen as a representative of the a priori tradition in scientific method. The modern method in the mainstream of economic thinking is also to a large extent anti-historical and a priori, but because of its lack of realism and extensive reliance on very limiting assumptions. The main strength of the Mengerian anti-historical approach is lesser faith in imaginary constructs, implying a higher degree of realism in theorizing.

Im Beitrag gehe ich der Forschungsfrage \"für welche Konventionen stehen Gütekriterien empirischer Sozialforschung?\" nach. Zum Verstehen der Konventionen führe ich eine deduktiv-qualitative Untersuchung von Lexikontexten zu Gütekriterien qualitativer, nicht-standardisierter und quantitativer, standardisierter Sozialforschung sowie der Gütekriterienvorschläge qualitativer Forschung von STRÜBING, HIRSCHAUER, AYAß, KRÄHNKE und SCHEFFER (2018) durch. Die deduktive Kodierung basiert auf Kategorien der idealtypischen Wertordnungen nach BOLTANSKI und THÉVENOT (2014 [1991]). Aus der vergleichenden Konventionenanalyse extrahiere ich zehn Konventionen empirischer Sozialforschung, welche ich in drei Gruppen ordne: kognitive Konvention des Social Science Engineering (Mechanikkonvention), kognitiv-soziale Konventionen des Forschungsprozesses (Angemessenheitskonvention [inkl. intersubjektiver Nachvollziehbarkeit], Entdeckungskonvention und Iterations- und Distanzierungskonvention) und die sozio-kognitiven Konventionen der empirischen Sozialforscher*innen (Forscher*in-Ausblenden-Konvention, Mandarin*in/Meister*in-Konvention, Expert*in/Spezialist*in-Konvention, Forschungslyrikkonvention, Popularitätskonvention und Methodenbegriffskonvention). Die Anwendung der Konventionen auf die Gütekriterienvorschläge von OTTE et al. (2023) zeigt, dass die Gütekriterienvorschläge der analytisch-empirischen Soziologie im Kern die Konventionen der quantitativen Sozialforschung (Forscher*in-Ausblenden-Konvention und Mechanikkonvention) reproduzieren – ergänzt um die Forschungslyrikkonvention (Stichwort \"textuelle Performanz\", STRÜBING et al. 2018, S.93). Die Konventionenanalyse beende ich mit einem Plädoyer für einen substanziellen Methodenbegriff von Gütekriterien empirischer Sozialforschung (Methodenbegriffskonvention), welcher epistemologisch und methodologisch auf den Forschungsprozess (Angemessenheitskonvention, Entdeckungs- und Iterations- und Distanzierungskonvention) fokussiert und die sozio-kognitive Rolle von empirischen Sozialforscher*innen im Forschungsprozess angemessen berücksichtigt.

This article challenges Tony Lawson’s claim ( Lawson, 2016) that his ontology of money as the ‘social positioning’ of ‘prior value’ is more sustainable than prominent existing theories and is able therefore to reconcile their putative incompatibility.

In this paper we contextualize Carl Menger’s work in relation to the transformations of German political economy from the 1860s to the 1890s. We demonstrate that his Grundsätze (1871) was a culmination of the German subjectivist tradition which had started in the early nineteenth century. Menger’s synthesis of this tradition is comparable to Adam Smith’s synthesis of earlier knowledge in the Wealth of Nations (1776). Menger’s contribution was continuous with the intellectual project of leading German economists, such as Wilhelm Roscher, to whom Menger had dedicated his book. Roscher, however, also promoted a historical turn, that was combined with a progressive policy agenda by a new generation of German economists after they founded the Verein für Socialpolitik in 1872. These divergent Roscherian legacies clashed vehemently in the Methodenstreit. During this debate Menger elaborated in his Untersuchungen (1883) an evolutionary and spontaneous theory of institutional change, in line with the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment and in contrast to a more rationalist and constructivist theory of institutional change expounded by Gustav Schmoller and other Verein economists. The new policy-oriented direction of German political economy carried the day, also due the fundamental socio-economic transformations in the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and prompted Menger to restate in 1891 the social policy agenda of the classical political economists, most prominently Smith. Menger’s recurrent proximities to Smithian political economy – in the synthetic contribution of 1871, the theoretical innovation of 1883, and the policy agenda of 1891 – suggest that his arguments are best understood as a defense of what Boettke has called the “mainline” in economics.

Within the last decade or so, political philosophers have undergone intense disagreement over the proper methodology of political philosophy. This paper contributes to and tries to move past this debate by offering a new way of thinking about what it is political philosophers are trying to do. Instead of being either ideal or non-ideal theorists, political philosophers can orient themselves east of Eden or west of Babel. After examining different possible research projects, I argue that the most promising route forward for political philosophers is theorizing that is non-ideal and west of Babel. The paper ends by articulating what such a research program might look like.

This paper explores Max Weber’s intellectual relationship to the first generations of the Austrian School. Challenging his portrayal as a one-sided historicist, the paper reconstructs Weber’s intense involvement with the Viennese economists from the 1890s to his passing in 1920 and his efforts to overcome the fronts left behind by the Methodenstreit. Section 2 discusses a number of necessary conditions for declaring a scholarly community a “school”. Section 3 systematizes the multiple biographical connections, especially Weber’s nexus to Friedrich von Wieser and Joseph Schumpeter. Section 4 focuses on the research program of Social Economics during the first decades of the twentieth century as the “irenic formula” for the post-Methodenstreit hostilities. Within Social Economics, economic sociology constitutes an “intermediary” layer between economic theory and economic history, addressing the institutional properties of the framework surrounding the processes of human action and exchange. Depending on the relative importance and qualifying power of economic sociology vis-à-vis economic theory, the paper distinguishes two varieties of Social Economics, a “universalist” and an “institutionalist” one.

Max Weber's position with regard to the Methodenstreit, the dispute between the Austrians and the historical school over the status of axiomatic-deductive theory within economics, is investigated. I find that while there was much in Carl Menger's economics with which Weber agreed, his achievement was to provide an improved foundation for the historicist approach. I discuss the important differences between Weber's approach and the methodology advocated by Ludwig von Mises, the central figure in the later Austrian school. I argue that Weber broadened the scope for economics by integrating the empirical facts of history and the contemporary world, while Mises narrowed it by attempting to establish an economics purified of contingent empirical reality. Finally, I discuss Mises' influence on Lionel Robbins and Robbins' contribution to the eclipse of Weber's methodological insights.

\"Economists and Societies is the first book to systematically compare the profession of economics in the United States, Britain, and France, and to explain why economics, far from being a uniform science, differs in important ways among these three countries. Drawing on in-depth interviews with economists, institutional analysis, and a wealth of scholarly evidence, the author traces the history of economics in each country from the late nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating how each political, cultural, and institutional context gave rise to a distinct professional and disciplinary configuration. She argues that because the substance of political life varied from country to country, people's experience and understanding of the economy, and their political and intellectual battles over it, crystallized in different ways - through scientific and mercantile professionalism in the United States, public-minded elitism in Britain, and statist divisions in France. Fourcade moves past old debates about the relationship between culture and institutions in the production of expert knowledge to show that scientific and practical claims over the economy in these three societies arose from different elites with different intellectual orientations, institutional entanglements, and social purposes. Much more than a history of the economics profession, the book is a revealing exploration of American, French, and British society and culture as seen through the lens of their respective economic institutions and the distinctive character of their economic experts.\" Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: deskriptive Studie; historisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1890 bis 2000. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).

This is the first-ever English translation of an 1891 essay by Carl Menger published in the most important newspaper of the Habsburg Empire, the Neue Freie Presse. Menger writes the piece as a defense of classical political economy in general and of Adam Smith in particular, focusing on misinterpretations of Smith's work by the Younger Historical School in Germany. The essay reveals that Menger saw himself as working in a liberal tradition going back to Smith and classical political economy, rather than as a marginalist revolutionary who broke with classical political economy. It is a rare instance where Menger, holding the chair of economic theory at the University of Vienna, publicly expresses recommendations on economic policy. The essay represents Smith and the other classical political economists as socially motivated scholars concerned with just reforms to benefit ordinary people. Menger argues that the classical political economists were inclined toward liberal reforms but were by no means rigid exponents of laissez-faire. The essay is preceded here by an introduction authored by the translators Erwin Dekker and Stefan Kolev.