ABSTRACT
Some accountants have become aware of Professor D. R. Scott’s ideas through his work The Cultural Significance of Accounts. Any who are interested in a scholarly attempt to place accounting on a broader philosophical base, will, in any event, find Scott’s theoretical formulations provocative. Scott’s major academic interests lay in two areas, separate in nature but closely interrelated within his general philosophy. These areas were: a philosophical understanding of economic and social problems and the development of accounting, particularly accounting principles. Scott pointed out that western society is essentially pluralistic in nature, lacking a comprehensive and unifying philosophy such as had existed in the mediaval and individualistic periods. Scott believed cost accounting to be the most representative aspect of the phenomenon of institutional change within the broader area of accounting. Cost accounting, he pointed out, had its modern development as a conflicting methodology to general accounting.
