Joseph Alois Schumpeter and William James: pragmatism, will, and social evolution

Daisuke Kobayashi ()
Additional contact information
Daisuke Kobayashi: Seisa-Dohto University

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2023, vol. 20, issue 2, No 2, 235-257

Abstract: Abstract In the present article, the author discusses the similarities between the pragmatist William James’s thought and J. A. Schumpeter’s economic methodology and developmental theory. Many researchers have already discussed Schumpeter’s methodology and his developmental theory, and most of them have argued for the influence on Schumpeter’s methodology of Mach’s instrumentalism or of Weber’s attempt to overcome the Methodenstreit. The author adds to these arguments the hypothesis that Schumpeter was influenced by James’s pragmatism. A number of proofs to support this hypothesis are given through a detailed examination of Schumpeter’s first book, Das Wesen und der Hauptinhalt der theoretischen Nationalökonomie. The author also shows that Schumpeter’s elaboration of his developmental theory itself was somewhat under James’s influence. James’s “great man” and Schumpeter’s “entrepreneur” seemingly play almost the same role in social evolution. The author also hypothesizes that Schumpeter first encountered James’s idea of pragmatism through a lecture delivered by Sydney Webb at LSE. This view is reinforced by evidence from the lecture syllabus. In that lecture, at which we know Schumpeter was present, Webb explained James’s concept of the great man. So far, pragmatism has mostly been ignored in historical and theoretical studies of Schumpeter. However, the author believes that Schumpeter received significant and undeniable influence from William James.

Keywords: Social evolution theory; Darwinism; Pragmatism; William James; Schumpeter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B15 B31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40844-023-00268-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eaiere:v:20:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s40844-023-00268-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... theory/journal/40844

DOI: 10.1007/s40844-023-00268-6

Access Statistics for this article

Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review is currently edited by Kiichiro Yagi, Yuji Aruka and Takahiro Fujimoto

More articles in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().