IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ekm/repojs/v21y2001i2id95882.html

Determinism and free will in social sciences: mathematical contributions

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Louçã

    (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.)

Abstract

The paper surveys some of the powerful criticisms developed against the paradigm of general equilibrium, in particular those that were presented from the viewpoint of new insights from mathematics and physics. Maxwell, Duhem, Poincare?, Hurst and Mandelbrot, as many others, contrasted the universe of simplicity – the basis for the central limit theorem and most of traditional statistical inference – with the universe of organized complexity, arguing that auto-poiesis and coordination are indeed general features of our physical or social systems. The impact of these discussions in economics is then presented, since some criticisms to the theory of general equilibrium and in particular to the Cowles Commission programme emerged from this intuition on complexity: Sims, Granger, Wold, Hendry and other economists, statisticians or mathematicians expressed their reservations in relation to the orthodox tradition and culture in our science. The current heterodox strategies are discussed in the last part of the paper. JEL Classification: B41; B00.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Louçã, 2001. "Determinism and free will in social sciences: mathematical contributions," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Center of Political Economy, vol. 21(2), pages 342-364, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:21:y:2001:i:2:id:95882
    DOI: 10.1590/0101-31572001-1157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/bjpe/article/view/95882
    File Function: Abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/bjpe/article/download/95882/89352
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1590/0101-31572001-1157?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • B00 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General - - - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ekm:repojs:v:21:y:2001:i:2:id:95882. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cecília Heise (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://periodicos.fgv.br/bjpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.