Begreifen or Verstehen in the Thought of Ludwig von Mises Is There a Difference

An increasing number of scholars have argued that the theoretical approach of Ludwig von Mises ought to be viewed along lines that are more favorably disposed to interpretive historical methods than was once generally recognized. Despite Mises’s adamant statements about the apodictic certainty of theory derived from purposefulness, particular purposes were often seen by Mises to be embedded in a specific context. While this essay does not deny that such “understanding” can be useful in the application of theory, it argues that there were very good reasons why some of Mises’s students, particularly Murray Rothbard, took their teacher’s arguments in the more logically deductive and apodictic direction. The distinction between Mises’s idea of Begreifen and the historically laden concept of Verstehen is seen to be more substantive than nominal. Keywords: Ludwig von Mises, Max Weber, methodology, understanding, conception, Verstehen, Begreifen, Murray Rothbard, epistemology, economics, sociology