The Dialectics of Differentiation: Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts and Their Relation to His Economics
نویسندگان
چکیده
The notion that Marx neither understood nor advocated the use of mathematics is a persistent one. His interest in both commercial and abstract mathematics spanned more than two decades, however, and culminated in two \contributions" to the foundations of the calculus: \On the Concept of the Derived Function" (1881) and \On the Concept of the Di erential" (1881). A detailed examination of these and other technical notebooks suggests that Marx's economics both motivated and informed his studies in mathematics and that these, in turn, in uenced his understanding of economic phenomena. JEL Classi cation Numbers: A12, B14, C60 The Dialectics of Di erentiation: Marx's Mathematical Manuscripts and their Relation to his Economics* [Your paper on the derived function] has got such a hold over me that it not only keeps going round in my head all day, but last night I actually had a dream in which I gave a fellow my shirtbuttons to di erentiate and he made o with the lot. Letter from Engels to Marx, 18 August 1881 (Works V46: 131-132)
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