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In view of the great success enjoyed by the natural sciences by the end of the nineteenth century, scholars working in the social field felt the need to highlight the importance of the human sciences as piece and part of the broad scientific scene. Discussions purporting to the limits and status of the sciences devoted to the study of human behaviour, especially in relation to the logic of the natural sciences, led to the articulation of the conceptual pair Erklären/Verstehen as corresponding to the demarcation between Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften. The differentiation between History and Society took central stage in the context of the debates about the scientific parameters shaping disciplinary boundaries and gave rise to the famous Methodenstreit opposing Gustav Schmoller the leader of the German Younger School of Economics to Carl Menger, the founding father of the Austrian School of Economics. The relevance of this episode can be measured by its impact not only on economics, but on the broader context of twentieth century social science, as the Methodenstreit turned on the dispute between Methodological Individualism and Holism. In this essay I tell the story of the divergences between German and Austrian scholars and suggest that the gap between the German Historical School and the Austrian School of Economics may be narrower than standard textbooks suggest.

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-3540-0_12

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