The fault line of axiomatization: Walras' linkage of physics with economics

Michael Turk

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2006, vol. 13, issue 2, 195-212

Abstract: Economists have often aligned the field of economics with physics; in the process seeking to enhance the rigor of economics by mathematizing it. In the late nineteenth century there was no more ardent champion of this view of what economics should become than Leon Walras. His own writings, though, betray a tension between comprehending this mathematization as proceeding in parallel with physics or through a metaphorical analogy with physics. The limitations in Walras' ability to axiomatize economics reveal a flawed effort to establish the foundations of economics by analogy; this difficulty has persisted through the twentieth century.

Keywords: Leon Walras; neo-classical economic thought through 1925; economic methodology; economic equilibrium; relation of economics to other disciplines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1080/09672560600708011

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