Introduction to the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This “Introduction” aims to provide a variety of contexts for considering the number of ways monetary themes play out in twentieth century philosophy. The Methodenstreit concerning the nature of monetary phenomena and the proper methods for investigating them links a number of essays in this section. The Methodenstreit leaves a direct impact on the chapters on “Max Weber on Money” by Alan Sica, “Money and Philosophy in Vienna: Otto Neurath and Ludwig Wittgenstein” by Jordi Cat, “Spontaneity as a Concept of General Significance: The Austrian School on Money and Economic Order” by Scott Scheall. The legacy of the Methodenstreit also appears in the chapter “In Debt to Derrida: Deconstruction and Monetary Criticism” by Simon Wortham and Jean-Yves Grenier’s chapter on “Michel Foucault and Money”. Louis Larue’s chapter on “John Searle’s Ontology of Money, and Its Critics” and “Anscombe on Money, Debt, and Usury” by Graham Hubbs do not engage immediately with the figures in the Methodenstreit but nevertheless can be helpfully framed by the positions in the debate. Marxism-the common contrast class for both the Young German Historians and the Austrians-unites several essays in this section. Essays in the Marxian tradition, broadly construed, include “Money in Critical Theory: Pollock, Adorno, Habermas” by Christian Lotz, Marie Cuillerai’s chapter “Money, Women, and Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Living Currencies and the Gender of Capital,” Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò‘s “Following the Money: Liberation and Monetary Policy,” and “Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Rudolf-Wolfgang Müller-The Idea of Money and Money as Idea” by Thanasis Giouras. Finally, there are two intellectual movements concerned with method, science, and the relation between the individual and society, but neither of which was caught up in the Methodenstreit. The first of these is psychoanalysis as discussed in “Psychoanalytic Currency: Money, Commensurability, and Clinical Economies from Freud to Lacan” by Dany Nobus. The second movement is phenomenology as examined by Roger Burggraeve in “On the Sociality of Money according to Emmanuel Levinas”.