Game Theory: A Critical Introduction

by Shaun P. Hargreaves-Heap, Yanis Varoufakis

In recent years game theory has swept through all of the social sciences. Its practitioners have great designs for it, claiming that it offers an opportunity to unify the social sciences and that it it the natural foundation of a rational theory of society. Game Theory is for those who are intrigued but baffled by these claims, and daunted by the technical demands of most introductions to the subject.

Requiring no more than simple arithmetic, the


* Traces the origins of Game Theory and its philosophical premises

* Looks at its implications for the theory of bargaining and social contract theory

* Gives a detailed exposition of all of the major `games' including the famous `prisoner's dilemma'

* Analyses cooperative, non cooperative, repeated, evolutionary and experimental games

Genres: Economics, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Mathematics

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Kevin K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The attraction of this book is its discussion of the philosophical foundations of game theory. Those parts are useful and worth a read (particularly Section 1, and to some extent Sections 6 and 7). However, the book is plagued by quality problems, and I was disappointed by it. Exercises were added in the Second Edition to enable use as a general text in game theory, but the exercises are an afterthought -- few and inadequate. Also, the quality of the writing and explanations is generally serviceable, but often poor. For example, subgame perfection and backward induction (Section 3) are simple, straightforward concepts when explained properly, but the explanations in this book are completely botched and incomprehehensible. If you're learning game theory, my advice would be to learn the fundamentals from a standard text.

Also, there is a major disconnect between the book's grandiose description of game theory and the reality. The description: "[Game theory's] practitioners have great designs for it, claiming that it offers an opportunity to unify the social sciences and that it is the natural foundation of a rational theory of society." That's a laughable characterization of the powers of game theory. Game theory, at best, is a collection of interesting, but extremely skeletal, mathematical ideas that say almost nothing about the social sciences or human rationality. This is a case of Taleb's "Ludic Fallacy" gone wild -- "the misuse of games to model real-life situations."

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a primer on game theory, this book does little to elucidate the complexity of it's ideas. The figures and graphs appear another language to me and does little to broaden my understanding of the math of game theory predictions.

However the critical analysis of game theory is clear. There is clear value in attempting to predict and understand rational choices in games or specifically narrow decisions points, bargains or nuclear stand off. I can see the influence of studying game theory in episodes of Succession as characters stress on how speaks first and in world events as the US and Russia engage in proxy conflict through Ukraine.

The counter points involve the limits of how game theory predictions on bargaining and game strategy play out in observation. Human motivation is complex and therefore hard to operationalize or define individuals as "rational." There is also a self-fulfilling quality to the discussion on prisoner dilemma choices on cooperation vs. competition. Economic majors (whose study is likely influenced by game theory precepts) are more likely to behave selfishly in prisoner dilemma games. While other majors behave with greater cooperation.

The study of game theory itself seems to generate its own assumed norms that then influence the very things they were meant to predict such as nuclear stand off.

[Alex Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

After slowly reading and re-reading the first chapter (and the references therein), the rest of the book came quite easily. But digesting the implications, and assumptions underpinning, the notion of "rationality" is slow-going.

However, there is no other book which discusses quite as thoroughly as this. After spending (apparently) a year on this, I actually stumbled across John Searles' Rationality in Action, which has another fascinating angle on the flaws of "rationality" (in the game theoretic sense).

The rest of the book ("Game Theory: A Critical Introduction") is spent introducing specific games and types of games, specifically their limitations.

If you're going to be working with game theory for your field, this is definitely a book you should read.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 2 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[P · Rating 5 out of 5]

!!!

[Javier Castro · Rating 3 out of 5]

una vez le coges el truco el resto del libro se lee solo. el concepto de los limites es interesante.

[Danial Kalbasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a nice introduction to the GT, but i don't know why the text is overly complicated. The authors could use day-to-day examples more often rather than using variables to explain simple ideas.