Phenomenological and Interpretive-Structural Approaches to Economics and Sociology: Schutzian Themes in Adolph Lowe’s Political Economics∗

Abstract. Lowe’s “interpretive-structural ” approach to economics has important areas of contact with Schutzian social inquiry. Elaboration of Lowe’s approach may thus play a role in the development of a phenomenological economics, while the work of Schutz and his followers can contribute to the elaboration of Lowe’s interpretive-structural approach. A key issue to be worked out will be the relative importance of structural factors, or what we have here called transsubjective structures, and their relation to human motivations and behaviors. JEL Classification: B20, A12, B41, B53, B52, B31. “Academic research in the social sciences and the practical application of their results are suffering to-day from a general defect for which even the greatest achievements within the special branches cannot compensate. An excessive division of labour, a lack of synthetic co-operation between the various sections of social research more and more restrict the truth of any partial knowledge, the efficiency of any concrete action (Lowe 1935:19).” Adolph Lowe’s “plea for cooperation in the social sciences ” in his greatly overlooked and under-examined Economics and Sociology remained an important theme of his lifework for the next sixty years. Even prior to its publication, Lowe was immersed in such a tradition