重谈奥地利学派的理论和方法——试析解释学转向给奥地利学派带来了什么?

Reexamining the Hermeneutical Influence on Austrian Economics:A Work on Recent Innovations in Austrian Theory and Method

一个学派的发展是一个不断进化的具有历史性和路径依赖性的过程。在新一代奥地利学派的学者们的影响下,奥地利学派重新发现了门格尔和米瑟斯的作品中的欧洲大陆解释学哲学遗产,把已陷入过于理论化僵局的奥地利学派经济学发展成一种解释学的学科。本文将试图从本体论出发重构奥地利学派理论硬核和方法论特点,以及比较它跟其他学派的共同点和区别。在这个基础之上,我们将鉴别解释学给奥地利学派的理论完整和发展前途带来的影响。我的结论是"解释学转向"为奥地利学派一直存在的两大难题,即"坚持主观主义方法论教条的奥地利学派能怎么从事制度研究"和"坚持先验主义的奥地利学派能怎么从事经验性研究"提供了解决的方向。两个问题的缓解给奥地利学派所关注的研究问题提供很多新的研究机会,并且使得奥地利学派成为经济学家的一种真正的理论选择。目前为止,中国经济学文献缺乏对奥地利学派的理论硬核,认识论和方法,尤其是对步入叙述转向的奥地利学派的吸收和反思。本文旨在弥补这一点,并且在考虑到奥地利学派的局限性的基础上,提出中国政治经济学从奥地利学派的经验中可兹借鉴之处。

This article examines the hermeneutical branch of Austrian economics, its his- torical genesis across the works of Menger and yon Mises, and asks the question in what direction the introduction of hermeneutics has changed Austrian economics. It builds on Menger＇s ontological dualism between subjectivism and exact science, as well as on the Weberian and phenomenological insights of Austrian economics found in the work of Lachmann, Boettke, Madison, etc. My main argument is that hermeneutics has introduced the methodological tools to overcome 2 fundamental issues which have plagued the Austrian school for more than a century, mainly the lack of a coherent theo- ry of wholes, systems or institutions, and secondly, the lack of empiricallygrounded re- search due to a misunderstanding of the notion of apriorism. Hermeneutics equips the Austrian school with the methodological tools to create more practical and insightful re- search in economics, with ＂Grounded Theory＂ and ＂thick description＂, like the ones found in the anthropology of Malinowski and Geertz, becoming major methodological forms of economic investigation. The author conceives of the hermeneutical branch in economics found in the Austri- an school as part of an interpretive paradigm in social science in general. The divide be- tween neoclassical economics and Austrian economics is thus rooted in the schools＇ different epistemological positions, which stand for a positive and an interpretive paradigm in social science respectively.