ABSTRACT
Introduction The history of philosophy and the history of the mathematical sciences are inextricably linked. For instance, from Aristotle to Frege, Russell and Whitehead we witness the mathematico-logical clarification and axiomatization of deductive reasoning. Moreover, in the early decades of the twentieth century the axiomatization of probability occurred. For numerous philosophers, many of the domains of rational decision-making appear to resist mathematical analysis. This also changed during the course of the twentieth century. Analytic-minded philosophers and social scientists saw in what Pettit and others call Homo economicus the fundamental principles of rational decision-making that apply or should apply across the whole social spectrum.
