From Gedankenexperiment to Social Economics: Wieser’s Empiricism and the Social Sciences

Abstract

In this research, I have attempted to reformulate Wieser’s empiricism based on gedankenexperiment as a micro-foundation for his social economics and thus to derive implications for the application of behavioral theories examined by laboratory experiments to social theories. In his attempt to improve Menger’s economics, Wieser claims that economics should be an empirical science and develops an original scientific methodology based on experience. By analyzing his method, this research proposes that Wieser’s concept of “experience” is divided into four levels: “experience” as stored in language, as obtained via introspection, as derived from gedankenexperiment, and as observation of society. According to this research, Wieser’s experiences are hierarchical and constitute the empirical basis of each dimension from the micro- to macro-levels in the social sciences. This research discusses that Wieser’s method has implications for modern behavioral theories in the sense that it is based on the subjective rationality of humans, which is empirically based. Wieser’s method contains situational analysis of social institutions as preconditions of human behaviors, performs empirical tests via gedankenexperiment on causal explanations linking human’s preferences and social conditions, and involves methodological motivationalism that defines social units as a driving force of social fact. Although his methods had the limitation of being psychological, his method is important as it showed a way to derive social theories from assumptions of behaviors and institutions that are empirically examined.

This chapter is a revised version of manuscript: Natsuka Tokumaru, Wieser’s Unity of Thought, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, vol. 37, no. 4 in December 2015.