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HARSANYI BEFORE ECONOMICS: AN INTRODUCTION*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

PHILIPPE FONTAINE
PHILIPPE FONTAINE*
Affiliation:
École normale supérieure de Cachan
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Extract

Upon learning that John C. Harsanyi (1920–2000) was awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, in 1994, for his pioneering work in game theory, few economists probably questioned the appropriateness of that choice. The Budapest-born social scientist had already been recognized as a first-rank contributor to non-cooperative game theory for some time (see, e.g., Gul 1997). However, as many readers of this journal will be aware, Harsanyi first contributed to welfare economics, not game theory. More importantly, he was philosophically minded and accordingly has been “acknowledged as the most influential philosopher in economics” (Güth 1994: 252).1 This is of some significance since, before Harsanyi became acquainted with economics around 1950, his main interest was philosophy and, to a lesser extent, sociology and psychology. Rather than an economist with philosophical leanings, Harsanyi was actually a philosopher turned economist.

Type
Essay
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 343 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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