Schütz on Meaning and Culture

Abstract

The hermeneutical Austrians wanted to provide (1) a philosophically sound justification for the contention that praxeology is a science of meaning and (2) justification for an approach to empirical/historical work that favors ethnographic methods. This article argues that had the hermeneutical Austrians relied on Alfred Schütz rather than Hans-Georg Gadamer to support their positions much of the firestorm surrounding their methodological pronouncements could have been avoided. Schütz’s phenomenology offers a more than adequate defense for these (two) positions and, as a member of the Austrian school, his views on these arguments may have been more readily received.

Keywords: Schütz, Gadamer, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Culture and Economy, Thick Descriptions

JEL Classification: B0, B25, B3, B53