Collective action, rational man and economic reasoning

Abstract

When Pascal wanted to test one of the implications of Torricelli's hypothesis, he made his brother-in-law P6rier climb the Puy-de-D6me, a mountain some 4800 feet high, with a mercury barometer in his baggage. Torricelli believed the Earth to be surrounded by a sea of air, which, owing to its weight, exerts pressure upon the surface below. Torricelli had demonstrated that mercury could not be pumped up as high as water. Since mercury's specific gravity is - 14 times that of water, he expected mercury to reach 1/14 of the maximum height reached by water when pumped up by a suction pump. And just this happened. The fact that a suction pump which draws water from a well will lift water only - 34 feet induced Torricelli to formulate his hypothesis of a sea of air. And indeed, Pascal's brother-in-law P6rier became immortal in finding a mercury column at the top of the Puy-de D6me-mountain to be three inches shorter than when at the bottom. Air really seems to be less heavy and cause less pressure at the top of a mountain than at the bottom. This implies that a lower temperature would be needed to boil eggs on Mount Everest than in Maggie's Bed & Breakfast in downtown London. Moreover, Torricelli's idea immediately brought about the construction of the barometer and the altimeter. I read this story in Carl G. Hempel's Philosphy of Natural Science (1966, p. 9). We used this book as an introductory text for a seminar held at the University of Munich in Spring 1980. This seminar was dedicated to "Metaeconomics". Unfortunately, the participants of the seminar did not stick to natural science. Most participants had a rather limited knowledge of the natural sciences and were therefore embedded in large fields of speculation and discussion. However, they discovered the concept of rationality and some got caught in its trap. Rationality was identified as the gravity of