Unity or disunity of the sciences? The German debate around 1900
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper gives an overview of the intense and prolonged debates concerning the relationships between the natural, social and historical sciences in German-speaking academia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, the paper focuses on discussions over cultural history (Schäfer versus Gothein; Buckle and Du Bois-Raymond versus Droysen and Lorenz; von Below versus Lamprecht); the position of psychology (Steinthal, Lazarus, Wundt, Dilthey); the role of the social sciences (Mohl versusTreitschke and Dilthey); the goals of economics (Knies, Schmoller, Treitschke, Menger, Weber); neo-Kantian conceptions and their rivals (Lange, Cohen, Windelband, Rickert, Dilthey, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche); and the road from Marxism to sociology (Marx, Lassalle, Stammler, Tönnies, Sombart, Simmel). I conclude by gesturing at ways in which these debates were related to social-political controversies.
Author: Martin Kusch
Institution: University of Vienna
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,930
OpenAlex ID: W4409633429