Undo the Math !

Marc Idelson

Description

In a study inspired by author's observation of the spiraling out of control use of mathematics by bankers, financiers and economists, the Western world's reliance on arithmetic and geometry is traced back, with support from the works of Medieval historian Alfred Crosby and of Anthropologist of Knowledge Paul Jorion, to its Medieval and Antiquity roots. The author bases on different areas such as philosophy with François Jullien's Chinese thought and Michel Bitbol with his epistemological reflections.

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 13
• EAN13: 9782296489189
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Undo the Math!

Collection « Recherches en Gestion » Dirigée par Luc Marco Apprentissages, stratégies et compétitivité sur la longue durée. L’étonnante histoire d’Eurocopter, Marc-Daniel Seiffert, Préface de Jean-Claude Tarondeau, 2008. Les courants actuels de recherche en marketing. Synthèses et perspectives, sous la direction de J.-M. Décaudin, J.-F. Lemoine et J.-F. Trinquecoste, 2006. Les coûts des maisons de retraite, Hien et Miyako Bui Quang, 2008. Design et marketing : fondements et méthodes, sous la dir. de J.-P. Mathieu, 2007. e L’entrepreneur français, modèle pour le XXI siècle, Karine Goglio-Primard, 2007. La fabrique des experts-comptables, une histoire de l’INTEC, Luc Marco, Samuel Sponem et Béatrice Touchelay, 2011. Histoire managériale du Bazar Bonne-Nouvelle, galeries marchandes à Paris, 1835-1863, Luc Marco, 2009. Inefficience et dynamique des marchés financiers, F. Jawadi, J.-M. Sahut, 2009. Le management de la diversité. Enjeux, fondements et pratiques, sous la direction d’Isabelle Barth et de Christophe Falcoz, 2007. Méthodes et thématiques pour la gestion des risques, sous la direction de Bernard Guillon, 3 volumes, 2007, 2008, 2011. e Morale industrielle et calcul économique dans le premier XIX siècle. L’économie industrielle de Claude-Lucien Bergery, 1787-1863, François Vatin, 2007. Nouvelles avancées du management, sous la direction de Luc Marco, 2005. La presse et les périodiques techniques en Europe, 1750-1950, sous la direction de Patrice Bret, Kostas Chatzis et Liliane Pérez, 2009. La publicité paneuropéenne, sous la direction de Sylviane Toporkoff, 2006. Regards actuels sur la société contemporaine. La pensée de Georg Simmel, sous la direction d’Isabelle Barth, 2009. Traité de la marchandise et du parfait marchand, Benedetto Cotrugli, 1582, édition scientifique par Luc Marco et Robert Noumen, 2008.

Marc Idelson

Undo the Math!

Managerial and organizational cognition theoretical and practical implications of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary semiotic gaps

Cover photograph : © ESSEC, 2010. Cover illustration : M. Idelson, 1986, 2011.

© L'Harmattan, 2012 5-7, rue de l'École-Polytechnique ; 75005 Paris http://www.librairieharmattan.com [e-mail] [e-mail] ISBN : 978-2-296-96993-3 EAN : 9782296969933

To Professors Bitbol, Crosby, Donaldson, Jorion & Jullien on whose shoulders I stand, To that great device, the anonymous reviewer, for raising my spirits in the nick of time, To Professor Besseyre des Horts for his incommensurable patience, To the memories of Professors Cabrol & Dumont, who first nudged me onto this journey. To my close friends and family, for never asking but always questioning, To fate, for auspiciously putting me within the purview of my then future wife.

“When I choose a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “Through the Looking Glass”, Lewis Carroll

MATHEMATICS STANDS AS THE FIERCEST ENEMY OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST ONTOLOGIES, 1 BY ERIC ABRAHAMSON

This book turns on a fascinating premise, that Society constructs Mathematics. In other words, Mathematics does not inscribe itself into social consciousness. Mathematics, like any other Reality, is socially constructed.

What type of social construction? Take a man who painfully bumps into a wall. Remember Society calls the man a man and the wall a wall. A Society of different men who call themselves “carpenters” builds the walls Society mandates. Society tells the man how to react when he bumps against the socially constructed Reality he is walled into. Society determines the level and nature of what the man calls “pain” when he bumps into the boundaries Society constructed. Society even creates unbumpable pain barriers that are never tested. In this way, Society constructs the one and only Reality. No one thinks outside the Societally constructed Reality of something that is not socially constructed. Societally constructed Reality has no outside. Nothing stands behind it to influence it.

Mathematics, however, stands at the most obdurate wall that Society arguably does not construct. Mathematics dictates the wall’s perimeter, area, and volume —this is beyond social discussion. More pointedly, a circle with a radius r has its own, real properties independent of what Society does or does not construct. It has an area A such that: 2 A =πr It has a perimeter C, such that: C = 2πr 1 Professor Eric Abrahamson is the Hughie E. Mills Professor of Business Management at Columbia Business School.

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Marc IDELSON

πis a symbol that in base 10 equals 3.14 followed by an infinite series of numbers;πoutside socially constructed Reality. Moreover, stands πinscribes itself into Society. It operates independently on whatever round artifact Society decides to construct.

To pass the time at a cocktail party, I found nothing better to do than to propose to a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry thatπexisted only insofar as it was produced by Society. If a Society constructed nothing circular, I proposed, then there would be no circle areas or perimeters. There would exist no realπ to measure these areas and perimeters. More simply, I stated what Mathematicians have stated more eloquently. There is no number 2 without the socially mediated perception that there are two like members of a set. “2-ness” does not exist alone just as “π-ness” does not exist without circles.

The Nobel Laureate looked at me, bemused. I had not even planted in his mind the idea that it might be interesting to consider thatπis just as real as any other social construction, like a wall. For him Societies without aπ and, by extension, Societies without Mathematics, were Societies that were too primitive to have discovered the Mathematics ofπ. The recognition ofπconstructed modern Society. Modern Society did not constructπ.πexisted before Society, made it possible for Society to develop wheels and for Mathematics to articulate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.πwould outlive Society’s self-destruction. Husserl once wrote that in a completely blue world there would be no blue. Blue becomes real only in contrast to another color. When social construction creates a hegemonic Reality then the hegemon disappears from sight. Likewise the social construction of a western paradigm based on Math so surrounds and suffuses us that we can no longer see that we are surrounded by it. Numbers and Math are no longer what Society constructed to measure Reality; they are that Reality which lets itself be accurately measured by Society; and not just any Society, only an “advanced” one.

This book could create an instant of doubt in the Nobel Laureate’s mind.

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