EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Certainly not! A critical realist recasting of Ludwig von Mises's methodology of the social sciences

Paul Lewis

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2010, vol. 17, issue 3, 277-299

Abstract: This paper focuses on Ludwig von Mises methodological apriorism. It uses Wittgenstein's private language argument as the basis for a critique of Mises's claim to have found apodictically certain foundations for economic analysis. It is argued instead that Mises's methodology is more fruitfully viewed as an exercise in social ontology, the objective of which is to outline key features of the socio-economic world that social scientific research ought to take into account if it is to be fruitful. The implications of this perspective for three key methodological issues, namely the relationship between theory and history, the possibility of naturalism, and the place of Austrian economics within the discipline of economics as a whole, are brought out.

Keywords: Austrian economics; Ludwig von Mises; praxeology; private language argument; social ontology; critical realism, (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1350178X.2010.500503 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:jecmet:v:17:y:2010:i:3:p:277-299

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJEC20

DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2010.500503

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Methodology is currently edited by John Davis and D Wade Hands

More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:17:y:2010:i:3:p:277-299