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The Emergence of Sociology in Austria 1885–1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John Torrance
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Abstract

None would deny the fateful role of Austria in European political history during the past century. Her place in intellectual history is of equal importance, as several recent studies have reminded us. Her contribution to the emergence of sociology was both important and peculiar, yet its distinctiveness has often been overlooked. This is partly because of the tendency not to discriminate between Austrian and German thought, and partly because of concentration on successful and positive contributions, rather than on inhibited and negative ones. The latter, however, may be even more instructive than the former.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , November 1976 , pp. 185 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1976

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References

(1) In addition to Carl Schorske's valuable studies, there is now Janik, A. and Toulmin, S. E., Wittgenstein's Vienna (London 1973)Google Scholar. Above all, I am indebted to William Johnston, M., The Austrian Mind (Berkeley 1972)Google Scholar, an indispensable work of synopsis and synthesis, although my sociological interstudies, pretations differ from his.

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(5) His champion in America was Lester F. Ward. In Germany, his most important disciple was Franz Oppenheimer.

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(10) Loc. cit.

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(33) Johnston, W.M., op. cit. p. 198Google Scholar.

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(38) In 1884, Böhm-Bawerk agreed with Menger that the ‘economic subjects’ of the new school were the atoms of society and that its task was ‘to restore the precise atomistic tendency’. Quoted in Bukharin, N., The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class (New York 1970), p. 40Google Scholar. (Naturally sociologists do not have to be holists to deny —as they must— social atomism).

(39) In System der Werttheorie (Leipzig 1897–1898)Google Scholar.

(40) von Wieser, F., Social Economics (London 1927), pp. 3–9Google Scholar. (The original, Theorie der gesellschaftlichen Wirtschaft (1914) was commissioned by Max Weber).

(41) von Mises, L., Epistemological Problems of Economics (New York 1960), p. 13Google Scholar.

(42) C.E. Schorske, op. cit.

(43) Kelsen, H., General Theory of Law and State (New York 1961), p. 175Google Scholar.

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(51) In: In: On the Concept of Social Value, in Clemence, R.V. (ed.), Essays of J. A. Schumpeter (Cambridge, Mass. 1951)Google Scholarwhich is partly devoted to a discussion of Wieser's methodology.

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(58) See Sweezy, P.M. in Harris, S.E. (ed.), op. cit. p. 121Google Scholar. And cf. the lame, almost wistful treatment of the contrast between the way in which the relation of sociology to economics is handled by Marx, and by ‘most of us’, in Essays, pp. 286–87, nGoogle Scholar.

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