[Diskussionswortmeldung über Sachverstehen und Seelverstehen]

Franz Xaver Weiss: [Diskussionswortmeldung über Sachverstehen und Seelverstehen] (1933)

This brief published discussion contribution clarifies Weiss’s appeal to “understanding” as a criterion of utility-value theory (Nutzwertlehre). Responding to Colm’s objection that he has misunderstood Sombart’s Die drei Nationalökonomien, Weiss distinguishes two senses of understanding:

Herr Colm hat offenbar das im Auge, was Sombart „Sachverstehen“ nennt, nicht aber das „Seelverstehen“.

English translation: Herr Colm evidently has in mind what Sombart calls “understanding of subject matter,” but not “understanding of psychic life.”

The distinction locates the disagreement within Sombart’s conceptual vocabulary. Colm’s recorded interjection—that Sombart discusses both—prompts Weiss to specify which sense informed his earlier argument. Weiss does not abandon either category; he establishes their relative importance to his position.

Ich aber hatte vor allem das Seelverstehen gemeint, daneben übrigens auch vom Sachverstehen gesprochen, als ich sagte, daß sich gerade vom Standpunkt der Nutzwertlehre aus ungezwungen die Funktion des Preises in der Verkehrswirtschaft als Ausdruck eines sozialen Wertes ergibt.

English translation: I, however, had chiefly meant understanding of psychic life; incidentally, I had also spoken of understanding of subject matter when I said that precisely from the standpoint of utility-value theory, the function of price in an exchange economy as the expression of a social value follows naturally.

The substantive claim links utility-value theory to the social significance of prices: Weiss presents that theory as capable of explaining price as an expression of social value. The contribution asserts this connection without developing its derivation. Its significance lies in clarifying the methodological claim at issue, rather than supplying a full theory of price. Weiss closes by inviting Colm to explain their difference, emphasizing that the question matters to him beyond the immediate discussion.