MISES (Ludwig von).
Grundprobleme der Nationalökonomie. Untersuchungen über Verfahren, Aufgaben und Inhalt der Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftslehre.
Epistemological Problems of Economics
The rare first edition of Mises’s Epistemological Problems of Economics, in which he established the philosophical foundations of his theory of human action known as ‘praxeology’.
‘During the 1920s, von Mises became very much interested in epistemology. In opposition to the increasingly fashionable methodology of positivism, he set forth a methodology of purely logical deduction from self-evident and a priori axioms, based on the approach of Nassau Senior and of other classical and Austrian economists. He developed his methodology approach - which he was later to call ‘praxeology’ - in a series of essays, Grundprobleme der Nationalökonomie (1933). Praxeology, with its stress on individual human action, on the individual’s purposive choice of means to arrive at preferred ends, heavily influenced Robbins’s methodological work, which English-speaking economists came to regard as outstanding’ (IESS).
As with many German academic publications, the present book was issued in two different bindings of publisher’s grey cloth and orange printed wrappers. The present example appears to be another variant; there is no evidence of it having been previously bound, suggesting either a simple interim binding or possible later issue binding.
From the library of the German economist Prof. Dr. Ronald Clapham, with his neat ownership inscription to the half title.
