Jacques Lacan and game theory: an early contribution to common knowledge reasoning

Abstract

Lacan’s contribution in applying and promoting game theory in the early 1950s is mostly ignored in the history of game theory. Yet his early analyses of logical reasoning made him one of the first social scientists to consider the importance of the hypothesis of common knowledge. By retracing Lacan's path in his discovery of game theory, we show how much he has been a precursor in applying it. While accommodating a narrative approach, he demonstrated rigour and originality. Soliciting mathematicians open to interdisciplinarity, he introduced as early as 1945 modes of reasoning which corresponds to reasoning based on common knowledge.