How Economics Became a Mathematical Science

Description

"How Economics Became a Mathematical Science" likely refers to a scholarly work or academic discourse that explores the historical development of economics as a discipline and its increasing reliance on mathematical methods and models. Here's how one might interpret the title: 1. **Historical Evolution:** The term "How Economics Became" suggests that the book traces the historical evolution of economics as a field of study. It may examine key developments, milestones, and shifts in economic thought and methodology over time, from its early roots in moral philosophy and political economy to its emergence as a mathematical science. 2. **Mathematization of Economics:** The book likely focuses on the process by which economics came to be characterized as a mathematical science. It may explore how economists began to apply mathematical techniques and formal models to analyze economic phenomena, including the development of mathematical tools such as calculus, linear algebra, and probability theory. 3. **Methodological Shifts:** "How Economics Became a Mathematical Science" may also investigate the factors that drove the increasing mathematization of economics. This could include discussions of intellectual trends, disciplinary norms, institutional influences, and the influence of advances in mathematics and other sciences on economic theory and practice. 4. **Implications and Critiques:** The book may consider the implications of the mathematization of economics for the discipline itself and for broader debates within the social sciences. It may explore the strengths and limitations of mathematical methods in economics, as well as critiques of mathematical modeling from alternative perspectives such as institutional economics, behavioral economics, and economic sociology. Overall, "How Economics Became a Mathematical Science" likely offers a historical and analytical examination of the transformation of economics into a mathematical discipline. It aims to deepen our understanding of the intellectual and methodological foundations of contemporary economic theory and practice. In How Economics Became a Mathematical Science E. Roy Weintraub traces the history of economics through the prism of the history of mathematics in the twentieth century. As mathematics has evolved, so has the image of mathematics, explains Weintraub, such as ideas about the standards for accepting proof, the meaning of rigor, and the nature of the mathematical enterprise itself. He also shows how economics itself has been shaped by economists’ changing images of mathematics.Whereas others have viewed economics as autonomous, Weintraub presents a different picture, one in which changes in mathematics—both within the body of knowledge that constitutes mathematics and in how it is thought of as a discipline and as a type of knowledge—have been intertwined with the evolution of economic thought. Weintraub begins his account with Cambridge University, the intellectual birthplace of modern economics, and examines specifically Alfred Marshall and the Mathematical Tripos examinations—tests in mathematics that were required of all who wished to study economics at Cambridge. He proceeds to interrogate the idea of a rigorous mathematical economics through the connections between particular mathematical economists and mathematicians in each of the decades of the first half of the twentieth century, and thus describes how the mathematical issues of formalism and axiomatization have shaped economics. Finally, How Economics Became a Mathematical Science reconstructs the career of the economist Sidney Weintraub, whose relationship to mathematics is viewed through his relationships with his mathematician brother, Hal, and his mathematician-economist son, the book’s author.This work will interest economists, mathematicians, philosophers, and historians of science, sociologists of science, and science studies scholars.