Carl Menger on formal methods and essentialism: a revisionist account

Description

The Austrian School of economics is highly skeptical regarding the use of mathematics in economics and according to some accounts even rejects formal methods altogether. The restriction to arguments in natural languages purportedly originates with Carl Menger’s “essentialist critique of the use of mathematics in the social sciences” (Boettke 1996) and his avoidance of mathematics “out of principle” (Jaffe 1976). I call the received view into question and argue that Menger accepts the use of logic and mathematics both as a means of presentation and as a means of demonstration. He merely denies formal methods the status of a means of research, i.e. formal methods do not grant a privileged access to essences underlying observable phenomena. Consequently, Menger’s position allows for partial formalizations of Austrian economic theory (cf Linsbichler 2023). In contrast to (early) Wieser’s methodology (1884), the strong essentialism of which Menger (1888) dismisses, Menger’s criticism of the use of formal methods in economics is neither principled nor strongly essentialist.

Period	20 Sept 2024
Event title	Workshop: Philosophy, Psychology and Logic at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Event type	Conference
Location	AustriaShow on map