Models and modelling processes: A critical step for an environmental research [La modélisation: Moment critique des recherches sur l'environnement]

International audienceMany new modelling practices appeared over the last 20 years. These innovations together with the idiosyncrasies of environmental management issues stimulate social sciences to renew their approach and adapt their analysis of models and modelling processes. In particular, the new modelling practices have to be analysed in a historical and sociological perspective in order to better understand the role of modellers and user communities, as well as their interactions. This shift in focus, from models as objects to modelling processes as sets of practices, enables to reinstate the role of the different actors of modelling processes. Such an evolution of perspective is all the more necessary since environmental models are developed in an ever-closer relationship with action. Dealing with modellers aiming - through their tools - to "change the world", social scientists have to take into account the models' implementation and the context of use. This opens the way for a proper understanding of both their nature and their role in environmental management. These observations provide the very basis of a research domain that has been explored far less by social scientist in France than in Anglo-Saxons countries. A large research project entitled "Modelling, Simulations and Complex Systems Management" and funded by the French Ministry of Research is trying to fill this gap. The project aims at: (a) exchanging experiences between many disciplines, as diverse as History of Sciences, Epistemology, Management Sciences, Communication Sciences, Environmental Economics, Urban Transportation Economics, Climate Modelling or Chemistry ; (b) developing common concepts and understanding of these new environmental modelling approaches, (c) improve our understanding and characterisation of complex models, and, (d) renew our understanding of the role and status of models in environmental management. © 2003 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS. Tous droits réservés

Reflections upon the Mathematization of Mayotte’s Economy

International audienceThis chapter envisages that Mayotte's economy could be viewed as a significant issue for the modelization of complex systems in the systemic paradigm – a paradigm which has come into being since the second half of the 20th Century. Despite the long debate on the so-called mathematization of economics since the 19th Century, advanced knowledge in mathematics is a necessity for any postgraduate economist. Though there are several arguments for justifying the mathematization of economics, it is sufficient in the chapter to group them into two categories, which are linked: the ontological argument and the linguistic one. The chapter uses examples to show the fact that Mayotte's formal economy cannot be strictly separated from informal activities and that their interactions, difficult to mathematize traditionally, might be viewed as issues for the modelization of complex systems

A positivist tradition in early demand theory

In this paper I explore a positivist methodological tradition in early demand theory, as exemplified by several common traits that I draw from the works of V. Pareto, H. L. Moore and H. Schultz. Assuming a current approach to explanation in the social sciences, I will discuss the building of their various explanans, showing that the three authors agreed on two distinctive methodological features: the exclusion of any causal commitment to psychology when explaining individual choice and the mandate to test the truth of demand theory on aggregate data by statistical means. However, I also contend, from an epistemological point of view, that the truth of demand theory was conceived of in three different ways by our authors. Inspired by Poincare, Pareto assumed that many different theories could account for the same data on individual choice, coming close to a kind of conventionalism - though I prefer to refer to this position as theoreticism. Moore was himself akin to Pearson's approach, which could be named descriptivist in so far as it resolved scientific laws into statistical descriptions of the data. Finally, Schultz tried to reconcile both approaches in an adequationist stance with no success, as we shall see.positivism, Pareto, Moore, Schultz, demand theory, methodology,