Visualization or Mathematization? The London School of Economics and “Diagrammatic Economics” in the 1930s
挑战了经济学中理论图解只是数学化初级形式的观点，聚焦1930年代伦敦政治经济学院师生如何将图解作为经济推理工具，在多元学术环境中澄清概念和解决定义问题。
Abstract Although the subject of numerous contributions in the history of economics, the use of theoretical diagrams by economists is still quite misunderstood, as this practice is often characterized as a basic form of mathematization, soon replaced by more rigorous techniques of demonstration or exhibition. The present article attempts to challenge this view, focusing on a period of time, the 1930s, during which “diagrammatic economics” and other techniques coexisted, and on a specific community, that of students and young researchers from the London School of Economics with a keen interest in using diagrams as tools for economic reasoning. The cosmopolitan nature of research and education at the LSE, with its insistence on reading a vast amount of literature and attending seminars by a revolving cast of local and foreign lecturers, offered a favorable environment for a form of visual analysis that helped clarify concepts and resolve definitional issues, at a time when interest in various economic traditions had not yet given way to attempts to systematize and unify economic knowledge and its standards of production.