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.