Sorry, this post was superfluous, the well advanced draft of the paper was posted the other day (attention deficit) so the previous post is deleted.
This paper is just about ready to go off to the journal of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia (HETSA).
The Abstract.
During the 1930s three lines of thought converged on a common model of explanation in economics and the human sciences. Working in Europe, Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian school developed what he called “praxeology” to explore the sciences of human action. In the United States, Talcott Parsons, under the influence of Marshall, Pareto, Durkheim and Weber, offered the “action frame of reference” and in New Zealand Karl Popper elaborated “situational analysis”. Common features of the three models are methodological individualism, rejection of instrumentalist interpretations of theories in favour of the search for real explanatory theories, and the use of a rationality principle linking the ends and means of action. The three principals and their followers almost completely refrained from public comment or discussion of the work of the other two parties and the three lines of thought did not merge to generate a critical mass of opinion which might have made a difference in the social scientific community at large.
Conclusion: Does the failure of convergence matter?
What difference did it make, that the three thinkers pursued different paths and did not build bridges to the others or encourage their students to do so? Boettke argued that the Weber/Austrian line of thought had the capacity to integrate economics and the other social sciences but the thread was lost due to the anti-individualism of Durkheim and Parsons in sociology and the myopia of the Austrians in economics (Boettke 1998). He did not take account of the alignment of Parsons (up to 1937) with the Austrian program and Popperian situational analysis. Thus there was a Parsons/von Mises/Popper program available to do the work of integration, if only the three leaders could have mustered enough support in their respective areas of influence to create a critical mass of opinion to resist the trend to mathematical formalism in economics and to overcome the standoff between economics and sociology.
At the very least there could have been an alternative program of interdisciplinary theoretical investigations and associated fieldwork and policy studies running in parallel to the main streams in economics and sociology. This is the kind of work that is now proceeding in some places such as the economics department of George Mason University, and in affiliated research centers such as the Institute of Humane Studies, the Mercatus Center and The Center for Study of Public Choice.
Note 3 has the wrong citation.
Thanks Lee, the citation Mises 1966 (third revised edition of HA) is ok but the reference itself fell out of the list at the end (now corrected) also there was a minor mistake in the quote, an “as” got written “is” which did not change the sense but that is fixed as well. These details are a nightmare which is why it takes so long to get from a good first draft to the final product that is ready to send to a journal. And that is before the referees start on it.
Many authors list up to 20 or 30 helpers who have read drafts more or less helpfully and they tend to pick up some of these things.
The two logicians who were critical of Parsons have fallen out of the reference list as well, I will fix that later in the day.