Antoine Augustin Cournot

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Antoine Augustin Cournot
University of Grenoble

Antoine Augustin Cournot (French pronunciation:

philosopher and mathematician who also contributed to the development of economics
.

Biography

Antoine Augustin Cournot was born at Gray,

École Normale Supérieure
, and, according to Sandmo:

in 1823 he took a license degree in mathematics at Sorbonne University. He then became the private secretary of a field marshal who required assistance in writing his memoirs. This position left Cournot with considerable time for his own pursuits. In the course of his ten years in the field marshal's employment he took two doctoral degrees, one in mechanics and one in astronomy. In addition, he published a number of articles and even acquired a degree in law.[1]

Subsequently, Cournot held positions as professor of mathematics, chief examiner for undergraduate students, and rector of Dijon Academy.

By the time Cournot died in 1877, he was nearly blind.

Work

Economics

Cournot was mainly a mathematician, but had some influence in

reaction function
and best-response dynamics.

Cournot believed that economists must utilize the tools of mathematics only to establish probable limits and to express less stable facts in more absolute terms. He further held that the practical uses of mathematics in economics do not necessarily involve strict numerical precision.[citation needed]

In the field of economics he is best known for his work in the field of oligopoly theory, Cournot competition, which is named after him.[4]

Philosophy

Cournot worked on determinism (in physics) and chance.

Unlike

Pierre-Simon de Laplace, who thought that nothing happens by chance, and Aristotle
, who thought that randomness and causality had nothing to do with each other, Cournot united the concepts, defining randomness as the encounter of two independent causal series.[5] This definition allows randomness even in perfectly deterministic events, and is used to generate random numbers by the combination of unrelated signals (for instance, temperature and sound).

See also

References

  1. .
  2. , retrieved 2 March 2022
  3. ^ Antoine Augustin Cournot (1897). Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth. Macmillan.
  4. .
  5. ^ Thierry Martin. "Cournot (A)". encyclo-philo.fr (in French). Retrieved 16 January 2017..

Further reading

External links