| Abstract: |
This paper deals with methodological principles of Schumpeter’s academic
writings. Those principles led Schumpeter to create diverse works and were
reflected systematically in some of his writings, where Schumpeter emerged as
a theorist of science. Besides working on specific topics, Schumpeter dealt
systematically with methodological issues in different works. Schumpeter’s
History of Economic Analysis, in particular, must be regarded as the one study
among his diverse works, which is considered not only his latest but also his
most relevant analysis concerning social sciences and the role of economics in
relation to sociology, history and other academic branches. The substantial
preface of the History of Economic Analysis can be regarded as a manual on how
to refer to different academic branches and integrate them into a coherent
universal social science, which is far removed from being an autistic, narrow
economic science of some modern representation. Although Schumpeter’s History
of Economic Analysis has been extensively printed in several editions, the
idea is that the preface especially reveals somewhat neglected thoughts in
Schumpeterian discourse. While Schumpeter is mostly regarded as a pioneer of
evolutionary economics, this paper argues that Schumpeter could also, perhaps
primarily, be interpreted as a well-reasoning institutionalist aiming at a
universal social science. From today’s point of view, Schumpeter is a truly
interdisciplinary theorist. |