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Hermeneutics and phenomenology in the social sciences: Lessons from the Austrian school of economics case

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Abstract

We study a case that applies hermeneutics to social sciences, in particular to the Austrian school of economics. We argue that an inaccurate treatment of hermeneutics contributed to an epistemological downgrade of the Austrian school in the economic scientific community. We discuss how this shortcoming can be fixed and how a proper hermeneutic application to the Austrian school explains why this school of thought is neither positivist nor postmodern.

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Notes

  1. According to Gadamer (1975), Schleiermacher and York also belong next to Weber and Dilthey.

  2. On Gadamer’s approach to hermeneutics and possible relativism, see Prychitko (1994).

  3. Also see Hayek (1948, Chapter 1), Fleetwood (1995), and Zanotti (2003, 2004a, pp. 34–48, 2013, pp. 98–99).

  4. On the possibility of merging the epistemology of the Austrian School and hermeneutics. and for a thorough critical rationalistic reading of Gadamer, see Di Iorio (2013a). On the consistency between the theory of knowledge and action in Hayek’s The Sensory Order (1952b) and Gadamer’s hermeneutics, see Di Iorio (2013b).

  5. For other negative reactions to Lavoie’s hermeneutical turn see Gordon (1986), Hoppe (1992), and Perrin (2005).

  6. For a sample, see Boettke et al. (2004, n. 5), Lavoie (1990, pp. 2–3, 1995, pp. 388–389, 401, 2011, pp. 109, 112), Madison (1990, p. 37), and Palmer (Palmer, 1990, pp. 296, 302).

  7. For a sample, see Boettke et al. (2004, p. 23), and Lavoie (1986a, p. 197, 1987, pp. 587, 583, 585, 587, 595, 1990, pp. 2–3, 1995, p. 388, 2011, pp. 107, 109, 114).

  8. Lavoie (1990, p. 2.3, 1995, pp. 388–389, 401). For a secondary literature see Boettke, Lavoie, and Storr (2004), Madison (1990, p. 37), and Palmer (1990, pp. 296, 302). For an account of the intellectual context during Lavoie’s initial work on hermeneutics see Boettke and Prychitko (2011).

  9. For a realistic interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology, see Stein (1994) and Leocata (2003).

  10. Lavoie (1987, p. 586) stated the following: “We only understand our world because we understand one another. We only understand each other, in turn, because we all spent some substantial part of our lives being enculturated into the life-world, a specific domain we have in common.”.

  11. Zanotti and Cachanosky (2015) argue that the Austrian school and mainstream economics are different paradigms built on different Lakatosian hard-cores. Of course, each paradigm can have, in turn, their own sub-paradigms (ie. Keynesians versus monetarists/neoclassical economics).

  12. Recall that the Austrian school was part of the Vienna circle that shared a common background with figures such as Popper, among other philosophers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Austral, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Gabriel J. Zanotti

  2. Department of Economics, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Campus, Box 77, P.O. Box 173362, Denver, CO, 80217, USA

    Nicolás Cachanosky

  3. Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Agustina Borella

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Zanotti, G.J., Borella, A. & Cachanosky, N. Hermeneutics and phenomenology in the social sciences: Lessons from the Austrian school of economics case. Rev Austrian Econ 36, 403–415 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-021-00548-7

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