Weber recognized explicitly that his concept of ideal-type is directly borrowed from economic theory and as it is commonly admitted from the German-speaking 'marginalist school'. Nevertheless, the construction of ideal-types reminds greatly the definition of economic rationality made by John...

A strong critical movement emerged in the mid 1860s based on Auguste Comte's idea of a unified social science. Presented here is the debate over the independence of political economy vis-a-vis the other branches of social science, between Frederic Harrison and John Kells Ingram on the one side,...