Eucken reconciled German historical and theoretical economics through ideal-type abstractions

Evidence

Eucken’s Grundlagen book focused on method and sought to produce a new synthesis of the “great antinomy” of historical and theoretical economics in Germany. Eucken developed pointed abstractions from which he derived ideal types that would help him develop a general theory of economic order, to “recognize the system of order and thus the structure of the economic order of each epoch and every people (Volk).” He believed his method would yield “useful tools” needed to describe the “concrete every day life … of every concrete economic order” (Eucken 1940/1943, 254f.; emphasis added). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 532

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Eucken’s methodological synthesis — pointed abstractions yielding ideal types as tools for describing concrete economic orders.
• XREF: Ideal-type methodology echoes Max Weber’s Verstehen tradition; relevant to how ordoliberalism positioned itself against the historical school. — connects to: A German economist proposed grounding economics in empirical behavioral sciences rather than abstractions — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 328; Weber reconciled hermeneutics and positivism through ideal-type heuristic models — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 334

Broader Connections

• Weber reconciled hermeneutics and positivism through ideal-type heuristic models #corroborates (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 334