Rationalistic constructions; an interpretation of selected works by Fabio Besta and his students at the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio (Venice, 1868-1927)

Accounting in the Italian peninsula used to be conceived as either an art or a technique. That changed during the second part of the Nineteenth century when accounting started to be conceived as a science. Fabio Besta was the leading accounting scholar during this time teaching and researching at the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio, the first Italian higher education institution devoted to commercial studies. In his magnum opus “La Ragioneria” Besta conceptualised accounting as a science. Scholars that studied Besta and accounting more in general in the Kingdom of Italy at that time, adopted either a descriptive or a technical approach to his life and works. There has been little effort to understand what this change meant. I problematised the conceptualisation of accounting as a science, supplying an interpretation of this phenomenon. For the interpretation I adopted the approach to hermeneutics Martin Heidegger crafted during his years in Freiburg. Martin Heidegger’s thought is not only used for its approach towards hermeneutics, but it also supplies concepts for the interpretation itself. Besta conceptualised accounting as a science drawing on positivism, especially on Herbert Spencer’s work. However, underneath this sociological veneer it is economics that constituted a much more robust influence. So much so, that I claim that that Besta’s accounting is embedded in an economic Weltbild (picture of the world). Furthermore, while on the surface Besta claimed to believe in social constructs as organisms, the belief in accounting possessing universal and eternal laws reveals a mechanistic mentality and a desire to reach the certainty that only mathematics can offer.