Schutz’s Theory of Economics

Abstract

Economics is the social science about which Schutz actually has the most elaborate theory. Relevant passages are brought together here to show how the “postulates” or “rules for scientific procedure” of economics specify the postulates of the cultural sciences in general and of the social sciences specifically, how economics is a theoretical science, and how it has at least the schools of thought within it of classical economics or utilitarianism as well a modern economics, which is based on the principle of marginal utility and which Schutz supported.

It must be clearly stated that the relation of phenomenology to the social sciences cannot be demonstrated by analyzing concrete problems of sociology or economics, such as social adjustment or theory of international trade, with phenomenological methods. It is my conviction, however, that future studies of the methods of the social sciences and their fundamental notions will of necessity lead to issues belonging to the domain of phenomenological research. (I 116)

Embedded citations refer to works of Schutz that are listed at the end of this chapter.

Works of Schutz

Note: Unless done otherwise, the following works will be cited with the embedded abbreviations as listed down the left margin below, plus the page number(s).

I = Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol. I, The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962).

II = ––––-, Collected Papers, Vol. II, Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Broedresen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964).

III = ––––-, Collected Papers, Vol. III, Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. Ilse Schutz (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966).

IV = ––––-, Collected Papers, Vol. IV, ed. Helmut Wagner, George Psathas, and Fred Kersten, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996).

V = ––––-, Collected Papers, Vol. V, Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, ed. Lester Embree (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011).

VI = ––––, Collected Papers, Vol. VI, Literary Reality and Relationships, ed. Michael Barber (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013).

PSW = ––-, The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967).

PP = –––––-, “Positivistic Philosophy and the Actual Approach of Interpretive Social Science: An Ineditum from Spring 1953,” Husserl Studies, Vol. 14 (1998): 123–149. Reprinted in Dermot Moran and Lester Embree, eds., Phenomenology: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, 5 vols. London: Routledge, 2004, III, pp. 119–145. Also available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/t52u22v305u28g04/