MATHEMATICS IN ECONOMICS: REDUCIBILITY AND/OR APPLICABILITY?

The use of mathematics in physics is not restricted to non-formal use with emphasis on approximation and computability. There is also a domain of creative use of symbolic manipulation as well as of metaphoric imagination that makes applicability in the sciences so effective. The challenge to mathematical use in economics is to find ways to use it in these creative ways, including finding new discursive and writing strategies. For this to be possible, the nature of realism in economics has to be delineated since the way in which mathematics is used in economics seems to be in the "reductive" mode instead of the "applied" mode.