Keynes on Uncertainty and Tragic Happiness: Complexity and Expectations

ISBN-13: 9783030756642 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 182 str.

Anna M. Carabelli

Spis treści

1. Introduction

 2.      Rationality as reasonableness: probability 

2.1 Probability as reasonableness

2.2 Economic expectations

                                    Reasonable and conventional expectations

                                    Speculators’ knowledge

                        Ignorance and uncertainty

2.3 Reasonable economic policy. The reasonable justification of economic policy

            and intervention

2.4  Public institutions and limited knowledge

 

Complexity and incommensurability: multidimensional, heterogeneous and interdependent magnitudes. Probability and economic magnitudes

3.1 Probability: measurement and comparison

                                          The hypothesis of homogeneity

                             3.2  Joint judgements: direct and organic judgements

                                          Joint judgements of probability and the ‘weight or argument’,

                                          Joint judgements of probability and goodness: right conduct

                              3.3 Keynes’s philosophy of measurement: intrinsically incommensurable magnitudes

3.4 From probability to economic magnitudes

                               The general price level

                               Utility

                  3.5 Incommensurability due to heterogeneity in dimension

                  3.6 Keynes’s choice of the units of quantities and measure in economics

                               Units of time and comparison in time and space

3.7 The atomic hypothesis (the hypothesis of independence). Organic

                              interdependence. Wholes and parts.

3.8  ‘Complex or manifold’ economic magnitudes

 

4. The methodology of critique: probability and classical economic theory. Logical fallacies: tacit introduction of hypotheses of homogeneity and independence

                  4.1 The methodology of critique of probability in A Treatise on Probability

4.2. The methodology of critique of Classical economic theory

                                     Critique of premises

                                     Search for tacit assumptions

                                     Types of tacit assumptions

                                     Characteristics of tacit assumptions

                                    The limits set to tacit assumptions

                                     What Keynes meant by a ‘General Theory’

                                     The logical flaw in Classical economic theory: ignoratio elenchi

                                     The epistemological role of tacit assumptions in classical economic theory

4.3 Keynes’s own method of reasoning in The General Theory

 

 

1.  Uncertainty as Greek tragedy’s legacy. Uncertainty as a tragic choice

5.1 Tragedy: main themes

5.2 Tragic moral dilemmas

5.3 Keynes’s ethics of virtues

5.4 Pluralism and heterogeneity of ends and values

5.5 Irreducibility of heterogeneous plural ends and values: Keynes’s pleasure,                          goodness and happiness

 

1. Happiness as Aristotelian tragic eudaimonia

6.1 The ‘fragility of goodness’

6.2 The Greek legacy of the ethics of virtues against utilitarianism

6.3 Aesthetics as sublime: ‘tragic beauty’. Pluralism in aesthetics, the beautiful and sublime

 

1. Moral and rational conflicts and dilemmas

7.1 Keynes on moral conflict and dilemmas

7.2 Keynes on rational conflict and dilemmas

1. International relations: complexity, interdependence and multilateralism. A tragic dilemma

8.1 Indian Currency and Finance (1913) and The Economic Consequences of the     Peace (1919)

8.2 The General Theory (1936) and international relations

8.3 The Commod Control Scheme (1938-42)

8.4 The interwar period: protection and trade as a means of exporting unemployment

8.5 The International Clearing Union, or on trade as exchange of goods against goods

8.6 Memorandum ‘Overseas Financial Policy in Stage III’ (1945)

8.7 Keynes, current global imbalances and the euro-zone project  

 

9.  Conclusions

Bibliography

Index

 

O autorze

Anna M. Carabelli is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy.

Blurb

Most economists who read the General Theory candidly admitted that they could not understand the theoretical apparatus and found it easy to recast it in traditional terms. This book provides a masterful guide to the generally unrecognized methodological revolution that supported the new theoretical concepts -- a veritable lodestone that complements and expands understanding on the treatment of the economic magnitudes appropriate to the ideal of generality in the social sciences, to the applicability  of probability, to the formulation of decision-making under uncertainty, and the foundations of economic policy in interdependent economic systems.                                                                                      _Jan Kregel, Levy  Economics Institute

Anna Carabelli sets out Keynes’s understanding of economics as a way of thinking, encompassing method and morals, rather than as a doctrine. She does so with her customary admirable scholarship and also her willingness to take controversial positions. I commend the volume most highly to Keynes scholars as a drawing-together and development of the themes that Carabelli has pursued since the publication of her 1988 classic, On Keynes’s Method. Further Keynes’s approach was designed to be applied to different contexts, so I enthusiastically recommend the volume also as a foundation and guide for anyone open to such a ‘new way of reasoning in economics’ for the modern era.       _Sheila Dow, University of Stirling 

This book examines the philosophy and methodology of Keynes, highlighting its novelty and how it presented a new form of economic reasoning. Exploring Keynes’s use of non-demonstrative logic, based on probability, commonalities are found in his economics, ethics, aesthetics, and international relations. Insights are provided into his reasoning and his approach to uncertainty, rationality, measurability of complex magnitudes, moral and rational dilemmas, and irreducible conflicts.

This book investigates methodological continuity within Keynes’s work, in particular in relation to uncertainty, complexity, incommensurability, happiness and openness. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in Keynes, probability, ambiguity, ethics and the history of economic thought.

Anna M. Carabelli is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy.