Game theory
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, January 25, 1997
Abstract
Game theory is the study of the ways in which interactingchoices of economic agents produce outcomeswith respect to the preferences (or utilities) ofthose agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intendedby none of the agents. The meaning of this statement will not be clearto the non-expert until each of the italicized words and phrases hasbeen explained and featured in some examples. Doing this will be themain business of this article. First, however, we provide somehistorical and philosophical context in order to motivate the readerfor the technical work ahead.