Can you put free will into an equation? The debate on determinism and mathematics at the end of the nineteenth century

Thomas Mueller

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2017, vol. 24, issue 3, 441-464

Abstract: Mathematics and determinism may seem two very different topics, especially when mathematics is associated with the social sciences and economics. Nonetheless, this has not always been the case. In 1873 a curious debate took place in Paris between a young Léon Walras and Pierre Emile Levasseur concerning the compatibility of mathematics, economics, and free will. It was the consequence of a Laplacian view of mathematics that Walras inherited from physics, a view that associated mathematics with a peculiar philosophical conception. We reconstruct the historical context of the debate, the particular view of mathematics that lead to it, and then analyse the attitudes of Cournot, Walras, and Levasseur on the issue. We show that the mathematisation of economics was deeply influenced by how physicists understood mathematics.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2016.1186203

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