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MATHEMATICS IS THE LANTERN: VITO VOLTERRA, LÉON WALRAS, AND IRVING FISHER ON THE MATHEMATIZATION OF ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2018

Sonya Scott
Sonya Scott*
Affiliation:
York University.
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Abstract

The interdisciplinary project to unite the field of mathematics with the social and biological sciences marks the work of Vito Volterra, one of Italy’s most prominent mathematicians of the twentieth century. This paper explores the connections between Volterra’s 1901 inaugural address at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome and the work of two of his contemporaries, Léon Walras and Irving Fisher. All three thinkers were ardent advocates of the mathematical turn in economic thinking. This paper argues, however, that it is the previously unexplored relationship between Volterra and Fisher that sheds the most light on the way in which mechanical physics contributed to the project of mathematization within economics more generally. Furthermore, it explores the way in which mathematical inquiry postulated a new and coherent abstraction of the economy, at the same time that it gave epistemological authority to the economist.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 513 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2018 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Roberto Baranzini, Director of the Centre Walras-Pareto at the University of Lausanne, for access to archival materials. I also extend my gratitude to the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire Lausanne, and to the Archives of the Accademia dei Lincei Rome. I am indebted to both Daniele Besomi and Mark Peacock for their generous feedback and insight. Finally I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their careful reading and commentary.

References

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