| The Limits to Certainty 1993 Edition Contributor(s): Giarini, O. (Author), Stahel, W. R. (Author) |
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ISBN: 9401047804 ISBN-13: 9789401047807 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2012 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Leadership - Business & Economics | Development - Economic Development - Business & Economics | Economics - General |
| Dewey: 330 |
| Series: International Studies in the Service Economy |
| Physical Information: 0.63" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (0.94 lbs) 271 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: I consider it a privilege to have been invited to write a preface for "The Limits to Certainty". It is however paradoxical that a theo- retical physicist be asked to write about a monograph dealing mainly with service economics. Notwithstanding, I am delighted to do so. Indeed, it is striking that two so widely different fields like physics and social science, and more especially economics, can interact in such a constructive way. There is no question here of reductionism. Nobody claims to be able to reduce social scien- ces to physics, nor to use patterns of social interaction in order to formulate new laws for atoms. What is at stake here is more im- portant than reduction; the age-old separation between the so-cal- led "hard" and "soft sciences" is breaking down. This separation has a long history. First, one should recall the influence of Newton's achievement on the formulation of scienti- fic goals. This influence led to the formulation of equilibrium mo- dels for supply/demand adjustment. As was noticed by Walter Weisskopf: "the Newtonian paradigm underlying classical and non-classical economics interpreted the economy according to the patterns developed in classical physics and mechanics, in analogy to the planetary system, to a machine or clockwork: a closed auto- nomous system ruled by endogenous factors of a highly selective nature, self-regulating and moving to a determinate, predictable point of equilibrium" (The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance (1984), Vol. 9, no. 33, pp. 335-360). |
