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The impacts of the early 20 th century physics and mathematics crisis on contemporary economics discourse

A influência da física e da matemática na constituição da economia no início do século XX

ABSTRACT

Through discussion of several authors, dealing with the process of mathematicization of the economy, we seek to clarify the progress of this process in the world. Mirowski (1991MIROWSKI, Philip (1991) “The when, the how and the why of mathematical expression in the history of economics analysis”. Journal of Economics Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 145-157.) analyzes this phenomenon and finds that it began more strongly from 1925. However, he does not show in his article as mathematics and physics qualitatively influenced the economy. This is our primary goal in this paper: an account, in a systematic way, of how mathematics and physics have influenced constitution of economics, culminating in the adoption of general equilibrium as metatheory and the generalization of the hypothetical-method deductive.

KEYWORDS:
Mathematicization; economics; process; discourse; equilibrium

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