Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/149746 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CHOPE Working Paper No. 2016-19
Publisher: 
Duke University, Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE), Durham, NC
Abstract: 
This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books The World the Game Theorists Made by Paul Erickson and How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind by Paul Erickson, Judy Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca Lemov, Thomas Sturm, and Michael Gordin raise a number of complex historical questions about the interconnections among game theory, utility theory, decision-theory, optimization theory, information theory and theories of rational choice. Moreover the contingencies of time, place, and person call into question the usefulness of economists' linear narratives about the autonomous and progressive development of modern economics. The essay finally reflects on the challenges that these issues present for historians of recent economics.
Subjects: 
game theory
rational choice
JEL: 
A11
A12
B2
C02
C6
C7
D01
D7
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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