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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Citation (Chicago Style)

Storr, Virgil Henry, Schütz on Meaning and Culture (July 23, 2009). Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 147-163, 2010.