Abstract:
This paper examines critically the contributions of Cournot, Jevons and Walras as the founders of classical mathematical economics from a methodological standpoint. Advances in different economic schools and doctrines in the 19th century produced an environment of multi-dimensionality in economic analysis which was regarded by the pioneers of classical mathematical economists as a chaotic state. We have demonstrated that the formation of this new discipline, known equivalently as pure or scientific economics, was a response to this so-called chaotic state. We have also shown that the erroneous logic of abstraction in the sense of reducing a multi-dimensional economic system to a one-dimensional mechanical framework as the methodological basis of classical mathematical economics has been the origin of serious shortcomings in mathematical treatment of economics. Based on the writings of Jevons and Walras we have provided evidences to support the claim that advances in Marxian economics can be considered as the prime motive in the development of classical mathematical economics.
Machine summary:
An examination of the available explanations regarding the origin of classical mathematical economics is presented in Derakhshan (2014), where the literature on this topic are critically examined with reference to four categories of arguments put forward by Debreu (1986, 1987), Cournot (1838), Walras (1874) and von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944).
1. Advances in classical economics in the first half the 19th century, and particularly the contributions of Smith (1776), Ricardo (1817) and Mill (1848), together with the developments in theoretical socialism in general and Marxian economics in particular [Marx (1848, 1859 and 1867)]3, produced an environment of multi-dimensionality in economic analysis in which economic issues were studied in relation to historical, social, cultural and political observations.
5. Abstracting a pure economic sub-system from the real-life performance as distinct from philosophical, historical, political and social sub-systems was regarded by classical mathematical economists as a remedy to the prevailing state of multi-dimensionality (or the so-called chaotic state) in economic analysis.
Critical Analysis of the Logic of Abstraction in Classical Mathematical Economics: The Role of Sub-divisionism in Reducing Multi-dimensional Economic Analysis to a One-dimensional Mechanical Framework We discussed in Section 2 that from the early 19th century the advocates of mathematical treatment of economics regarded the prevailing philosophical and historical approach to economic analysis as a chaotic state in political economy.