Philippe Mongin

In 1969, Mongin enrolled in the École normale supérieure, where he studied literature and philosophy. He was also a student at Sciences Po, where he earned a degree in 1971. He defended his thesis under the supervision of Raymond Aron.[2] It was the first French thesis on the Das Kapital manuscripts of Karl Marx.

Following a study published by Cambridge University in 1978, Mongin began researching contemporary and mathematical macroeconomics. In 1980, he participated in collaborative efforts by Herbert A. Simon to conduct research on concepts of rationality in neoclassical economics.[3] Beginning in the 1990s, Mongin participated in a movement in attempt to reform normative economics and lift limits on the global market. In doing so, he developed an improbability theorem commonly used today in economic literature. It was considered to be a generalized form of utilitarianism. Building off of ideals from John Harsanyi, he clarified his economic beliefs in response to recent criticisms of his mentor, Amartya Sen.

Mongin's research program on normative economics was implemented at the Université catholique de Louvain, where he was a visiting professor from 1991 to 1996. At the same time, he aimed to develop a form of logic for game theory. In its infancy in the 1990s, game theory would take off and is now widespread. After his time in Belgium, he worked in the THEMA laboratory at Cergy-Pontoise University in Paris, where he met normative economic theorists Marc Fleurbaey and Jean-François Laslier. From 1995 to 2002, he directed the seminar "Les Midis d'Economie et Philosophie".

At the start of the 2000s, Mongin concluded much of his research and began applying his economic theories to politics and the judiciary. This led to his specialization in the judgment aggregation theory.

Philippe Mongin died on 5 August 2020 at the age of 70.[4]