w. KROEBER-RIEL CONSTRUCTS AND EMPIRICAL BASIS IN THEORIES OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR A~STRACr. Theories of economic behavior often use 'as-if-languages': for example, analytical sentences or definitions are used as if they were synthetic and factualnormative theoretical constructs are used as if they were empirical concepts. Such as-if-languages impede the acquisition of knowledge and are apt to encourage the wrong assessment of actual research strategies. The author's criticism is first leveled at revealed-preference theory. In this theory 'observed behavior' is often understood in an empirical sense although it is a pure theoretical construct. Another example can be found in yon Mises' representations on marketing behavior: here theoretical valuations are used to achieve a spurious streamlining of reality. Result: Scientists should not ogle with reality if they have nothing to say about it.
I. PROBLEMS OF SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGES IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES (THE AS-IF-LANGUAGES)
Economics is part of the social sciences. Though this position is an oftrepeated view it is still insufficiently applied in scientific practice and theory of social sciences.
Reckoning economics among the social sciences means drawing attention to the question: with which premises and in what form do economic sentences reflect human behavior? The present contribution deals with this problem.
First we shall lay down the philosophical position which determines the main points of this paper:
(a) We do not accept value-free social sciences. A value-free social science is a puristic ideal which is unattainable. Striving after this ideal means in many cases merely concealing valuations in pseudo-descriptive propositions and camouflaging the ideological character of propositions of social sciences (see Paragraph 3).
(b) We accept a pure theory within the framework of social science characterized by division of labour, i.e. a system of sentences with pure theoretical constructs which have no immediate relation to reality and therefore cannot be tested by reality. Such a system of propositions is