The end of certainty in economics

W. B. Arthur

pp. 255-265

in: Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Ernest Mathijs (eds), Einstein meets Magritte: an interdisciplinary reflection, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

The story of the sciences in the 20th Century is one of a steady loss of certainty. Much of what was real and machine-like and objective and determinate at the start of the century, by mid-century was a phantom, unpredictable, subjective and indeterminate. What had defined science at the start of the century—its power to predict, its clear subject/object distinction—no longer defines it at the end. Science after science has lost its innocence. Science after science has grown up.