Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Learning From the Global Financial CrisisCreatively, Reliably, and Sustainably$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
Learning From the Global Financial Crisis: Creatively, Reliably, and Sustainably

Paul Shrivastava and Matt Statler

Print publication date: 2012

Print ISBN-13: 9780804770095

Published to Stanford Scholarship Online: June 2013

DOI: 10.11126/stanford/9780804770095.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM STANFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.stanford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Stanford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in SSO for personal use.date: 03 March 2021

Hence God Exists

Hence God Exists

Chapter:
(p.96) 4 Hence God Exists
Source:
Learning From the Global Financial Crisis
Author(s):

Skip McGoun

Publisher:
Stanford University Press
DOI:10.11126/stanford/9780804770095.003.0005

This chapter provides a critique of the mathematization of finance and its disastrous consequences. It argues that beginning in the first quarter of the twentieth century and continuing to date, mathematics has moved from being a tool of analysis to being an end in itself. It notes that finance research and practice uncritically use mathematical models to ineffectively represent reality, which leads to false and ideologically biased conclusions. The discussion suggests that mathematical equations are not axiomatic laws but rather interpretive metaphors. They are not the truth, although they may express useful ideas. Finance professionals need to recognize the limits of mathematics and the metaphors that have been used to implement mathematics in the management of financial systems.

Keywords:   financial systems, mathematics, finance research, mathematization, axiomatic models

Stanford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.