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The Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises
EDITED BY BETTINA BIEN GREAVES
The Anti-capitalistic Mentality
Bureaucracy
Economic Freedom and Interventionism: An Anthology of Articles and Essays
Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow
Epistemological Problems of Economics
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Interventionism: An Economic Analysis
Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
Money, Method, and the Market Process
Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Time
Notes and Recollections: With The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit: Three Treatises on Trade-Cycle Theory
Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work A Collection of Essays and Addresses
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution
The Theory of Money and Credit
The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method
EDITED BY RICHARD M. EBELING
Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises
Volume 1: Monetary and Economic Policy Problems Before, During, and After the Great War
Volume 2: Between the Two World Wars: Monetary Disorder, Interventionism, Socialism, and the Great Depression
Volume 3: The Political Economy of International Reform and Reconstruction
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Epistemological Problems of Economics
LUDWIG VON MISES
Translated by George Reisman
Edited and with a foreword by Bettina Bien Greaves
LIBERTY FUND Indianapolis
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This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.
The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as a design element in Liberty Fund books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.
Foreword, editorial additions, and index © 2013 by Liberty Fund, Inc.
All rights reserved
Epistemological Problems of Economics was originally published in 1960 by D. Van Nostrand Company.
Front cover photograph of Ludwig von Mises used by permission of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama. Frontispiece courtesy of Bettina Bien Greaves.
This eBook edition published in 2014.
eBook ISBNs:
978-1-61487-637-3
978-1-61487-261-0
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CONTENTS
Foreword to the Liberty Fund Edition, by Bettina Bien Greaves
Preface to the English-Language Edition
1 THE TASK AND SCOPE OF THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN ACTION
I The Nature and Development of the Social Sciences
1 Origin in the Historical and Normative Sciences
3 The Program of Sociology and the Quest for Historical Laws
4 The Standpoint of Historicism
5 The Standpoint of Empiricism
6 The Logical Character of the Universally Valid Science of Human Action
7 Sociology and Economics: Some Comments on the History of Economic Thought
II The Scope and Meaning of the System of A Priori Theorems
1 The Basic Concept of Action and its Categorial Conditions
2 A Priori Theory and Empirical Confirmation
3 Theory and the Facts of Experience
4 The Distinction between Means and Ends: The “Irrational”
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1 The Meaning of Neutrality with Regard to Value Judgments