Schumpeter and the Idea of Social Science

This book is a comprehensive investigation of the work of Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950), one of the great economists of the twentieth century. In this study, Yuichi Shionoya highlights Schumpeter's methodological views and emphasizes his ideal of a universal social science. Taking on board all aspects of his work, he reconstructs a system which encompasses theory (economic statics, economic dynamics, economic sociology) and metatheory (philosophy of science, history and sociology of science). The originality of Schumpeter's work - which the author calls the two-structure approach to the evolution of mind and society - is examined in the light of the intellectual field in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century. This book is a major contribution to the history of economic thought.