Gérard Debreu’s Values: Axioms and Anecdotes
Including a Symposium on the Historical Epistemology of Economics
ISBN: 978-1-78714-538-2, eISBN: 978-1-78714-537-5
Publication date: 15 September 2017
Abstract
Economic ideas are the product of contemplation, but also of our economic lives. In the history of ideas, Gérard Debreu’s shining book of 1959, Theory of Value, represents the pinnacle of purity in contemplating economic life. Rather than contextualizing this oeuvre through his intellectual life, as is usually done, this essay describes his axiomatic analysis by contextualizing it through his economic life. What do we learn about Debreu’s axioms on consumption when thinking of his own consumption? What do we learn about his theory of value when thinking of his own values? Historiographically, this approach permits the use of a widely neglected source in the history of economics: anecdotes. Epistemologically, blending axioms and anecdotes offers a description of how axioms regulate an economic discourse. Finally, this essay offers a language for the material dimensions of economic life that are so underexposed in Debreu’s own work.
Keywords
Citation
Düppe, T. (2017), "Gérard Debreu’s Values:
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited