Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in memory of Ludwig ...

SUBJECTIVISM AND IDEAL TYPESAccordingly, ‘to check the exact theory of the national economy onthe basis of the totality of empirical reality is a methodologicalabsurdity.’ Or:trying to corroborate the pure theory of the national economyby matching it to the full reality of experience would be similarto the procedure followed by a mathematician who wouldwant to correct the theorems of geometry by measuringobjects of the real world.(ibid.: 64)For Menger, the ‘full empirical reality of phenomena’ is just anothername for the complexity and totality of the real world, that is, forthe impenetrable mass of concrete events and sensationssurrounding us in the world of human actions. Of course, this fullempirical reality cannot be used to verify or refute the laws ofeconomic theory, and thus our methods of discovering them,combined with the laws of logic, should vouch for their validity.This is, according to Menger, only a temporary solution, however.Although these laws are basically instruments of causal explanationfor him, they are also founded in one particular segment ofempirical reality, namely the economic aspect of the heterogeneousempirical phenomena. Hence the empirical validity of economiclaws can only be decided if we have at our disposal thecomprehensive and ‘exact’ theory that is able to embrace allimportant aspects, that is, the full reality, of these phenomena. Thisdigression was necessary to point out the similarities, implied by thecommon world view, between the position of Menger and that ofmethodological solipsism.Finally, I want to say a few words about the alleged apodicticcertainty or a priori validity of the introspectively obtainedtheoretical statements of the sciences of human action. Max Weberhad already answered some of these questions when he made adistinction between the clarity and certainty of interpretation andunderstanding on the one hand, and the validity of adequate causalexplanations on the other. According to Weber, it is easy for us tocomprehend clearly and with great inner certainty the meaning offorms of behaviour and types of action that we are either able toperform or that can be made empathically accessible to us throughsympathetic participation. The same is true of the rationalunderstanding of mathematically or logically related propositions,the meaning of which can be grasped immediately and89