Re: Article in the Chronicle of Higher Education

[Ted Winslow <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Barkley wrote:

>   In case you did not notice, I did not defend deductivism
> in general, and indeed declared that current math econ is
> largely moving beyond it.

I noticed that.  My point was to explicate the specific nature of the
critique of deductivism contained in the passage from Whitehead I
quoted, a critique rooted in the ontological concept of internal
relations.  It's this that the example from Keynes (about which you
make no comment) was meant to illustrate.  Where in current math econ
is the specific nature of that critique taken into account?  How, for
instance, is it taken into account in your own mathematical treatment
of behaviour in financial markets?

Nash doesn't take account of it does he?  I've read Mirowski.  What you
say about the influence of Nash on evolutionary biology hardly
demonstrates that that what we find in his ideas about agents
constitutes profound insight into the character of real human
individuals.  In what way do these ideas accurately describe what real
individuals are, could be or should be?

Ted