“The solution of the most important problems of the theoretical social sciences in general and of theoretical economics in particular is thus, closely connected with the question of theoretically understanding the origin and change of 'organically' created social structures.”

—  Carl Menger

Source: Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences, 1883, p. 147

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The solution of the most important problems of the theoretical social sciences in general and of theoretical economics …" by Carl Menger?
Carl Menger photo
Carl Menger 6
founder of the Austrian School of economics 1840–1921

Related quotes

Talcott Parsons photo
Gunnar Myrdal photo
D. V. Gundappa photo
George Klir photo

“To select an appropriate fuzzy implication for approximate reasoning under each particular situation is a difficult problem. Although some theoretically supported guidelines are now available for some situations, we are still far from a general solution to this problem.”

George Klir (1932–2016) American computer scientist

Source: Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic (1995), p. 312 as cited in: William Siler, James J. Buckley (2005) Fuzzy Expert Systems and Fuzzy Reasoning. p. 36.

Ragnar Frisch photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Told by P. Morrison
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: A guide for the perplexed (1979)

“They (social costs) are damages or diseconomies sustained by the economy in general, which under different institutional conditions could be avoided. [... ] if these costs were inevitable under any kind of institutional arrangement they would not really present a special theoretical problem. [... ] to reveal their origin, the study of social costs must always be an institutional analysis. Such an analysis raises inevitably the question of institutional reform and policy.”

Karl William Kapp (1910–1976) American economist

Source: Social Costs of Business Enterprise, 1963, p. 186 cited in: Sebastian Berger and Mathew Forstater (2007) "Toward a Political Institutionalist Economics: Kapp’s Social Costs, Lowe’s Instrumental Analysis, and the European Institutionalist Approach to Environmental Policy". In: Journal of Economic Issues. Vol.XLI, No.2, June 2007. p. 539

Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“Philosophy, as I understand the word, is a positive theoretical science, and a science in an early stage of development.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, §3. Laws: Nominalism, CP 5.61
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)
Context: Philosophy, as I understand the word, is a positive theoretical science, and a science in an early stage of development. As such it has no more to do with belief than any other science. Indeed, I am bound to confess that it is at present in so unsettled a condition, that if the ordinary theorems of molecular physics and of archaeology are but the ghosts of beliefs, then to my mind, the doctrines of the philosophers are little better than the ghosts of ghosts. I know this is an extremely heretical opinion.

Jürgen Habermas photo

“[Critical social science attempts] to determine when theoretical statements grasp invariant regularities of social action as such and when they express ideologically frozen relations of dependence that can in principle be transformed.”

Source: Knowledge and Human Interests, 1971, p. 310 as cited in: Dominick LaCapra (1983) Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. p. 170

Related topics