Methodenstreit

Methodenstreit (German for "method dispute"), in intellectual history beyond German-language discourse, was an economics controversy carried on for about a decade around 1890, between that field's Austrian School and the (German) Historical School. On an intellectual level it concerned whether any science (as opposed to only history) could explain the dynamics of human action; politically, it reflected conflict between the minarchism of the early Austrian School and the welfare state advocated by the Historical School.