THEORY OF GAMES, 1944

[Mark Klan]

> >... I am aware of no lexical difference whatsoever between ... "theory of
> >games" and "game theory" ....

Hello from a consistent lurker to your fine listserv.  I'm very much an
amateur in dialect, so I don't generally have anything to add.  However,
as an economist who "did" some game theory in grad school many
years ago, perhaps I can contribute something on this topic.

Generally, I think "*the* theory of games" and "game theory" are
equivalent when referring to a body of literature and techniques.  But I
can imagine a perfectly reasonable conversation as follows:

********
"Professor X presented his radical new theory of games yesterday
afternoon.  Did you attend the workshop?"

"Yes.  I found his new theory of games intriguing, but I don't think he did
a good job of showing how it reconciles with received game theory."
*******

In the second quote,  you could not use the terms "theory of games"
and "game theory" interchangeably, because "game theory" always
refers to a body of literature (in my experience), but "theory of games" is
a more flexible term when appropriately modified.

Hope this is useful.

Mark
http://www.planetc.com/users/msk (Acoustic Music Webtools)
markklan at planetc.com