Economics and Language Five Essays [Paperback]

A challenging and accessible analysis of the relationship between economics and language.Written by one of the world's leading thinkers on game theory, this short book offers a challenging and accessible analysis of the relationship between economics and language. His conclusions will be of interest to a wide range of social scientists who will need to rethink some of the fundamental assumptions they make about economic theory and game theory.Written by one of the world's leading thinkers on game theory, this short book offers a challenging and accessible analysis of the relationship between economics and language. His conclusions will be of interest to a wide range of social scientists who will need to rethink some of the fundamental assumptions they make about economic theory and game theory.Arising out of the author's lifetime fascination with the links between the formal language of mathematical models and natural language, this short book comprises five essays investigating both the economics of language and the language of economics. Ariel Rubinstein touches on the structure imposed on binary relations in daily language, the evolutionary development of the meaning of words, game-theoretical considerations of pragmatics, the language of economic agents and the rhetoric of game theory. These short essays are full of challenging ideas for social scientists that should help to encourage a fundamental rethinking of many of the underlying assumptions in economic theory and game theory.Part I. Economics of Language: 1. Choosing semantic properties of language; 2. Evolution gives meaning to language; 3. Strategic considerations in pragmatics; Part II. Language of Economics: 4. Decision making and language; 5. On the rhetoric of game theory; Part III. Comments Johan van Benthem, Tilman Borgers and Barton Lipman.