Professor Josef Macek (1887-1972) was an important inter-war period economist, a leading personality of Czech Keynesianism. He became famous thanks to his polemics with the economist and minister of finance Karel Englis on the questions of monetary and budget policy at the time of the economic crisis. After his emigration in 1948, he taught economics at the University of Pittsburg. This essay from the end of Macek's career, published for the first time, deals with the social-science methodology with special emphasis on the education to critical thinking. The work is published in the original English version.