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Bloomington scholars are critical of the rather wide-spread “Model Platonism” of both Austrian and Chicago economists. Their empirical, B, perspective avoids the more extreme views of both Austrian “mindful economics,” A, and Chicago “mindless economics,” C. Yet the B is not a mere convex combination of A and C. It is rather a psychologically grounded empirical evidence-oriented approach that keeps clear of the non-empirical spirit of von Mises’ and Selten’s methodological dualism on one hand and the instrumentalist and behaviorist spirit of much of neo-classical economics on the other hand.

The purpose of this paper is to present French Didactique des Mathématiques (DM) to the Lesson Study (LS) community.

This theoretical paper presents the origins of DM in the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS) by Brousseau. It elaborates about didactical engineering, fundamental situation and other fundamental concepts. It briefly presents other Didactique theories: the theory of conceptual fields, the anthropological theory of the didactic, the joint action theory in didactics and the double approach. It considers importance of the (TDS) and influences over teaching of mathematics. This paper finishes by highlighting the ways Didactique and LS could contribute to each other in a profitable dialogue.

The paper contrasts DM with some LS main features. It highlights the parallels despite fundamental differences in the initial goals of the perspectives. It shows that these differences could lead to productive dialogue by producing more practice-oriented forms of didactical engineering for the first and making teachers’ principles for lessons more explicit for the latter.

The paper presents a very quick overview of the parallels between DM and LS. Additionally, this paper gives many accessible references in English for the reader to explore Didactique further.

The Austrian school developed a specific kind of economic analysis. Mises′ place in this school of thought and his praxeological point of view is discussed. His philosophical stance and its methodological implications are then considered.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify definitions in economics.

To apply the insights of Austrian economics to terms widely used in the profession.

The authors find that the Austrian approach brings clarification to communication.

The authors know of no other such attempt. Therefore this paper presumably has some originality.

Explicates and analyses selected economic methodologies: praxeology, positivism and institutionalism. Praxeology is a rationalistic methodology which utilizes deductive logic to deduce conclusions concerning economic behavior from postulates, which are self‐evident truths, but praxeologists deny that empirical verification is either necessary or desirable. Positivism is a methodology which combines deductive rationalism as a method of deriving substantive hypotheses and inductive empiricism as a method of verifying these hypotheses. Institutionalism is a pragmatic methodology which is based on an empirical epistemology and which utilizes inductive logic to formulate economic policy and to solve practical problems. Concludes that institutionalism is more empirically relevant than either praxeology or positivism, and that, therefore, institutionalism is superior to the other methodologies.

To make decisions has long been considered an art more than a science. Today the area has been formalized under the name of praxeology and includes the use of computers as decision aids. In this paper some basic decision models are analysed together with some psychological phenomena often connected to them. Managerial problems and needs are examined and related to available computer decision support. The military command, control, communication, and intelligence structure is presented and compared to the corresponding civilian framework. The conclusion was that computer support in decision making now is firmly established among middle level decision makers. Top level managers, on the other hand, were found to derive no major benefit from such systems. Here good intuition, good guesses and a certain feeling for the task were the most important tools.

Experimental economics has been treated with skepticism by some Austrian economists. We argue that experimental methods are consistent with strong versions of praxeology, and are therefore not methodologically problematic for Austrians. We further argue that experimental research methods have illustrated many uniquely Austrian themes and provide a fruitful method for future Austrian-inspired research.

The papers collected here were written for the second biennial Wirth conference on Austrian Economics. The Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies sponsored the conference in cooperation with the University of Toronto in Mississauga. The conference was held from 17 to 18 October 2008 in Mississauga. The Wirth Institute has a natural home in Edmonton on the campus of the University of Alberta, which is a leading center for Central European Studies. The fact that the Institute has received support not only from government of Austria, but also from the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia reflects its historically minded recognition of the unique intellectual milieu of the Habsburg Empire. This intellectual milieu lasted beyond the breakup of the empire right through to the Anschluss in 1938. It is this milieu that shaped the Austrian school of economics and helped shape the context for the conference.

The aim of this paper is to show that there is need for revitalization of the normative branch of political economy. The first part of this paper will deal with some methodological reservations against a participation of economists in a rational discussion of normative issues. The second and third parts will outline the approaches and problems of two unconventional schools of thought in present‐day economics which make attempts to strive for a reconciliation of positive and normative economics.

All chapters in this volume explore connections between certain streams in philosophy and OT. As the titles of the chapters suggest, most authors write about a particular philosopher or group of philosophers that makes up a distinct school of thought, summarize important aspects of his/their work and tease out the implications for OT. The central question authors explore is: ‘what does a particular philosophy contribute to OT?’ Whether addressing this question in historical terms (‘what has been the influence of a particular philosophy on the development of certain OT approaches?’), exploratory terms (‘what benefits to organizational analysis does a particular philosophy bring?’) or a combination of both, the end result is similar: particular philosophical issues, properly explained, are discussed in relation to important questions in OT.