Epistemological Problems of Economics. Людвиг фон Мизес

p>

      [print edition page i]

       EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF ECONOMICS

      [print edition page ii]

      The Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises

      EDITED BY BETTINA BIEN GREAVES

      The Anti-capitalistic Mentality

      Bureaucracy

      Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays

      Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

      Epistemological Problems of Economics

      Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

      Interventionism: An Economic Analysis

      Liberalism: The Classical Tradition

      Money, Method, and the Market Process

      Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Time

      Notes and Recollections: With The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics

      Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War

      On the Manipulation of Money and Credit: Three Treatises on Trade-Cycle Theory

      Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work A Collection of Essays and Addresses

      Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

      Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution

      The Theory of Money and Credit

      The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method

      EDITED BY RICHARD M. EBELING

      Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises

      Volume 1: Monetary and Economic Policy Problems Before, During, and After the Great War

      Volume 2: Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder, Interventionism, Socialism, and the Great Depression

      Volume 3: The Political Economy of International Reform and Reconstruction

      [print edition page iii]

      [print edition page iv]

      [print edition page v]

      Epistemological Problems of Economics

      LUDWIG VON MISES

      Translated by George Reisman

      Edited and with a foreword by Bettina Bien Greaves

      LIBERTY FUND Indianapolis

      [print edition page vi]

      This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

      The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as a design element in Liberty Fund books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

      Foreword, editorial additions, and index © 2013 by Liberty Fund, Inc.

      All rights reserved

      Epistemological Problems of Economics was originally published in 1960 by D. Van Nostrand Company.

      Front cover photograph of Ludwig von Mises used by permission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama. Frontispiece courtesy of Bettina Bien Greaves.

      This eBook edition published in 2014.

      eBook ISBNs:

       978-1-61487-637-3

       978-1-61487-261-0

       www.libertyfund.org

      [print edition page vii]

      CONTENTS

Foreword to the Liberty Fund Edition, by Bettina Bien Greaves

Preface to the English-Language Edition

Preface to the German Edition

       CHAPTER

       1 THE TASK AND SCOPE OF THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN ACTION

       I The Nature and Development of the Social Sciences

       1 Origin in the Historical and Normative Sciences

       2 Economics

       3 The Program of Sociology and the Quest for Historical Laws

       4 The Standpoint of Historicism

       5 The Standpoint of Empiricism

       6 The Logical Character of the Universally Valid Science of Human Action

       7 Sociology and Economics: Some Comments on the History of Economic Thought

       II The Scope and Meaning of the System of A Priori Theorems

       1 The Basic Concept of Action and its Categorial Conditions

       2 A Priori Theory and Empirical Confirmation

       3 Theory and the Facts of Experience

       4 The Distinction between Means and Ends: The “Irrational”

      [print edition page viii]

       III Science and Value

       1 The Meaning of Neutrality with Regard to Value Judgments

       2 Science and Technology: Economics and Liberalism