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Mathematical Formalism and Economic Explanation

  • Chapter
The Reconstruction of Economic Theory

Part of the book series: Recent Economic Thought ((RETH,volume 8))

Abstract

Is there really nothing useful or novel to be said about the relationship between the study of economic phenomena and the casting of economic inquiry in quantitative and mathematical format? Everyone is fully aware that the trend over the last century has been toward ever greater mathematical sophistication as part and parcel of the professionalization of the disci-pline of economics. Everyone is equally aware that this trend has provoked periodic controversies over the meaning and significance of this conjunc-ture. Where awareness, or perhaps self-consciousness, is deficient is in the areas of the historical determinants of mathematical conceptualization, and of recent developments in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

I would like to thank Don Katzner, Robert Paul Wolff, David Ellerman, and Michael McPherson for their helpful and critical comments on an earlier draft. Although (or perhaps because) I did not end up writing the paper that any of them had suggested, they should bear no liability for my errors and extravagances.

Because I found in the course of researching this paper that there was a large literature on the role of mathematics in economics, but most authors seemed unaware of any but their own contributions, I have appended an extensive bibliography which touches upon the issues raised in this paper.

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  1. Philip Mirowski
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© 1986 Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, Boston

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Mirowski, P. (1986). Mathematical Formalism and Economic Explanation. In: The Reconstruction of Economic Theory. Recent Economic Thought, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-26879-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-26879-8_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-89838-211-2

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