Catherine Herfeld

Dr. Catherine Herfeld is an Affiliated Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Professor of Philosophy and History of Economics at the Institute of Philosophy at Leibniz University Hannover, Germany; an External Member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU Munich; and an Affiliated Member of the Center for Higher education and Science Studies at the University of Zurich.

She studied economics at the Technical University of Berlin and Free University of Berlin and earned her Masters of Science (philosophy of the social sciences) from the London School of Economics. She earned her PhD at Witten/Herdecke University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy as well as Guest Professor at the University of Vienna. She has been a Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science at Columbia University, Stanford University, and Duke University. 

Herfeld serves as a Board Member of the International Network of Economic Methodology and as a Steering Committee Member of the European Philosophy of Science Association. She is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology, a Co-Editor of the Cambridge Elements series on History of Economics, and the Book Review Editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. Finally, she serves as Member of the Editorial Board of Oeconomia - History, Methodology, Philosophy; the Philosophy of the Social Sciences; and of the book series with De Gruyter, History of Philosophy and Science. 

Her research focuses on the history and philosophy of the social sciences, historical epistemology, social theory, and sociology of science. Her upcoming book, Conversations on Rational Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2025), provides a fresh perspective on the epistemic potentials and limitations of rational choice theory through 23 conversations with some of the most prominent protagonists from economics, psychology, and philosophy.

For further publications by Herfeld, visit her website.