Abstract
The hermeneutical Austrians wanted to provide (1) a philosophically sound justification for the contention that praxeology is a science of meaning and (2) justification for an approach to empirical/historical work that favors ethnographic methods. This article argues that had the hermeneutical Austrians relied on Alfred Schütz rather than Hans-Georg Gadamer to support their positions much of the firestorm surrounding their methodological pronouncements could have been avoided. Schütz’s phenomenology offers a more than adequate defense for these (two) positions and, as a member of the Austrian school, his views on these arguments may have been more readily received.
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Notes
Alfred Schütz is one of the founders of interpretive sociology and one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. His Phenomenology of the Social World (1967) is arguably his most important work along with the essays in Collected Papers of Alfred Schütz Volumes I–IV ( 1962, 1964, 1966, 1996). Of particular interests to Austrians are Schütz’s essays on political economy including his review of Mises’ Grundprobleme der Nationalökonomie (“Basic Problems of Political Economy”) and the essay he wrote for the occasion of Hayek’s 1936 visit to Vienna (“Political Economy: Human Conduct in Social Life”). For discussions of Schütz’s personal and intellectual connections to Mises and the Austrian school see Augier (1995), Boettke (1998), Foss (1996), Koppl (1997), Kurrild-Klitgaard (2003), and Prendergast (1986).
Consequently, though a focus on the meanings that an individual attach to his actions is essential, we must remain aware that the “meaning of an action” for us in our role as social scientists cannot simply be what the actor intended. Rather, the “meaning of an action,” Gadamer suggests, is a fusion of horizons between the actor’s intentions and the social scientist’s theoretical frame. See Heckman (1986) for a discussion of the implications of Gadamer’s hermeneutics for the methodology of the social sciences.
See Lavoie (1994) for a discussion of the “interpretive turn” from the perspective of one of its advocates.
As Heckman (1986: 146–147) argues, “Both [Peter] Winch and Schütz claim that the social scientist must begin with the actors’ understanding of their actions, an understanding that both define in terms of the intersubjective understandings constituted by the social context rather than, with Dilthey, the subjective meanings of actors. Both also claim that the social scientist can then go on to a further level of explanation as long as it presupposes this basic understanding. … Schütz calls this level that of ‘second order concepts’ and insists that they meet the postulates of subjective interpretation, rationality, adequacy and logical consistency. … The analyses of Winch and Schütz as well as of those social scientists who have adopted their theoretical perspectives have, in actual practice, rarely moved to this ‘second level’ of explanation despite the attempts on the part of both Winch and Schütz to legitimize it. … Because both theorists insist on the epistemological primacy of the actors’ constitution of meaning, it follows that any other construal of meaning is necessarily suspect. … neither theorist offers any substantive justification for this second level of conceptualization on the part of the social scientist. ... If the analysis of social action is approached from the perspective provided by Gadamer’s hermeneutics, however, this problem of legitimizing a ‘second level’ of explanation imposed by the interpreter is removed.” Gorman’s (1975 and 1977) critiques of Schütz’s methodological writings are also quite relevant here. Also see Cotlar (1986).
That the meaning of a lived experience can be different depending on when and from what vantage point it is viewed, is perhaps the clearest indication that meaning has to do with reflection. As Schütz (1967: 74) writes, “the meaning of a lived experience is different depending on the moment from which the Ego is observing it. … its meaning is different depending upon the temporal distance from which it is remembered and looked back upon. Likewise, the reflective glance will penetrate more or less deeply into lived experience depending on its point of view.”
Recall that Weber has argued that “in [the category] ‘action’ is included all human behavior when and in so far as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning to it” (cited in Schütz 1967: 15).
Mises (2003: 88–92) has alternatively challenged Weber’s categories of action on the grounds that all human action is purposeful, even habitual action which can seem automatic.
And, Schütz (1967: 19) explained, “there is one fact which shows that most of my actions do have meaning. This is the fact that, when I isolate them from the flux of experience and consider them attentively, I then do find them to be meaningful in the sense that I am able to find in them an underlying meaning.”
See Weigert (1975) for a critical exposition of Schütz’s theory of motivation.
Characterizing “genuine because-statements” as referring necessarily to past projects motivated by events that are even further past has huge implications for any delineation of the scope and aim of praxeology (and history). Recall that Mises drew a sharp distinction between praxeology and history. In Mises’ (1963: 51) view, praxeology employs conceptual cognition and aims at explaining “what is necessary [and universal] in human action.” History, on the other hand, aims at understanding specific historical events. Recast in Schützian language, providing genuine because-statements is, thus, the province of historical sciences. Praxeology is an interpretive frame that can, at best, reveal what Schütz called “pseudo-because motives.”
Schütz calls this tracing back a move from the objective meaning to the subjective. As he (1967: 217) writes, “it is only when I begin to grasp the other person’s point of view as such, or, in our terminology, only when I make the leap from the objective to the subjective context of meaning, that I am entitled to say that I understand him. … Now, we have already seen that all knowledge of the subjective experiences of others must be obtained signitively. … we can start out from the external sign itself and, regarding it as a product, trace it back to the original actions and subjective experiences of its inventor or user. This is how, within the world of signs, the transition is made from the objective to the subjective context of meaning.” I should note that “objective meaning,” for Schütz (ibid.: 31 and 33), can be defined both negatively (i.e. the meaning of an act that’s different than the actor’s intended meaning) and positively (i.e. the meaning of a sign or the product of an act that is intelligible in its own right).
Weber’s “universal histories” like his discussions of the city are representative of this category. As Mises (2003: 114–115) explains, “In addition to excellent treatises on history, [Max Weber] himself published extensive works that he termed sociological. We, of course, cannot recognize their claim to this designation. …in their most important parts they are not sociological theory in our sense. Nor are they history in the customary meaning of the term.”
As Selgin (1988: 26–27) writes, “Of course, even pure economic theory is affected to some degree by considerations of history. But these considerations mainly refer mainly to the problem of whether a certain theory is relevant to a particular historical phenomenon under investigation. … Other praxeological laws and theories rely upon lengthier chains of reasoning into which a variety of assumptions enter. These are hypothetical-deductive theories: although their starting point is the certain fact of purposefulness, the auxiliary assumptions involved may or may not conform to any particular historical circumstance. Finally, praxeology includes exercises in ‘conjectural history’ in which reference is made to specific institutions (money, central banking), circumstances (monopoly), and policies (tariffs, taxation).”
As Mises (1985: 161) states, “If the historian refers to the meaning of a fact, he always refers either to the interpretation acting men gave to the situation in which they had to live and to act, and to the outcome of their ensuing actions, or to the interpretation which other people gave to the result of these actions. The final causes to which history refers are always the ends individuals and groups of individuals are aiming at.”
Mises has consistently warned us against extrapolating general principles from econometric details. At best, econometric results can serve as economic data that reveal only an aspect of economic reality and needs to be interpreted and augmented by other historical detail. As Rizzo (1978: 53) writes, “econometrics ought to be only one tool in the apprehension of historical phenomena. Clearly, not all issues of interest are quantifiable. If we try to explain complex phenomena only by reference to quantifiable variables, then we are likely to be throwing away some information that we do, indeed, have. Another danger is that we shall begin to identify reality with statistical data when, in fact, it is just one aspect of reality, a particular transformation of more elementary experience.”
Indeed, not all historical methods can reveal the experience of individuals-in-the-world. As I argued elsewhere (Boettke et al. 2004: 346–347), “ordinary experience is interconnected and embedded in a temporal world. Econometric models, however, necessarily aggregate and always abstract from the temporal dimension of human interaction. Aggregation, as is often pointed out, abstracts from the heterogeneous and context-specific character of individual interactions. Ordinary experience, on the other hand, takes place in certain places at specific times. And, even time series analysis treats time statically … Relationships are (necessarily) not allowed to change and units of time are (typically) treated as discrete. The mainstream by failing to begin in the world is simply unable to return to it.”
I should note that the book where this concept is developed was completed after Schütz’s death by his co-author and former student Thomas Luckmann. As Schütz’s biographer Barber (2004: 220) describes, “On the basis of Schütz’s manuscripts (in the form of notebooks) Thomas Luckmann brought The Structure of the Life-World to its final form … Luckmann … altered Schütz’s plans, expanding a section on typifications in the third chapter on the subjective stock of knowledge [and] producing an entirely new chapter, the fourth, on knowledge and society.” The arguments presented in these sections, however, draws heavily on Schütz’s work in this area and fit neatly into his body of work. See Schütz (1967: 78–83) for Schütz’s on writings on the stock of knowledge at hand.
See Storr (2004) for analytical narrative that speaks to the mutually reinforcing nature of a people’s ethos and world view.
History along Weberian–Misesian–Schützian lines will also employ ideal types. See, for instance, Mises (1963: 59–64).
By native, Geertz simply means the individual that is being studied.
“Confinement to experience-near concepts [or concepts that the native might employ to explain his actions],” Geertz (1983: 57) explains, “leaves an ethnographer awash in immediacies, as well as entangled in vernacular. Confinement to experience-distant ones [or concepts that specialists or scientists use] leaves him stranded in abstractions and smothered in jargon.”
Chamlee-Wright, though not a participant in the hermeneutics debates, was a student and co-author of Don Lavoie, one of the leading proponents of the interpretive turn. Indeed, Culture and Enterprise (2001) which she co-authored with Lavoie and her Cultural Foundations of Economic Development (1997) confirm her as a member of that camp.
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I am grateful to Don Lavoie, Peter Boettke, David Prychitko, Steven Horwitz, Rob Garnett, Paul Lewis, and Emily Chamlee-Wright for useful discussions on this topic and/or comments on earlier versions of this paper. The standard disclaimer applies.
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Storr, V.H. Schütz on meaning and culture. Rev Austrian Econ 23, 147–163 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-009-0093-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-009-0093-5