The Development of Game Theory
No TL;DR found
Abstract
Abstract : In the development of game theory, from a mathematized to a mathematical discipline, there is a natural classification of the historical progress into three periods. The first period - until the appearance of J. von Neumann's and O. Morgenstern's monograph - may be called pre-monographic. The second period is constituted by J. von Neumann's and O. Morgenstern's monograph itself which incorporated most of the results obtained earlier (which were, by the way, not too numerous according to present mathematical standards). It has offered for the first time a mathematical approach to games (both in the concrete and in the abstract sense of this word) in the form of a systematic theory. In its third stage game theory differs eventaully only little in its approach to the objects to be studied from other mathematical disciplines and develops at a considerable rate in a way similar to all of them. What has been said also determines the general structure of this survey article. Its chapters correspond to the historical periods of game theory just outlined.