Pretense of Mathematizing Human Action

Abstract

This article tries to understand how the Economic Science started a research program identified as the Neoclassical program, founded under the pretense of introducing mathematics as the solely language admitted for elaborating economic theory. This project produced another pretense, that was the endeavour of enclosing human action into different schemas that were compatible with the mathematical instrumental used by the program. We identify two critical moments of the Neoclassical program reshaped the way we understand human action: the pleasure-seeker behavior moment, introduced by William Jevons with the assistance of Jeremy Bentham and the second, called the utility-function era, the one that accompany us until today. Finally, we present some reflections about how a new outlook, based in Aristotelic insights could be very helpful in understanding and studying better human action.