Cambridge History of 20th Century Political Thought

Rating:
Summary: The discussion of Keynes's approach to probability is flawed
Review: Ball does a commendable job editing a series of articles that provide an historical overview of 20th century political thought.However,some of the contributions are badly marred by their failure to get anywhere close to the views actually expressed by J M Keynes in his A Treatise on Probability(1921;TP).Some of the essays ,unfortunately ,rely on the work of economists (A Carabelli,A Fitzgibbons,and R O'Donnell)for a general,overall assessment of Keynes's views on philosophy and probability instead of consulting philosophers like L Jonathon Cohen.The result is an intellectual quagmire of incoherent claims and inconsistent conclusions.Carabelli,Fitzgibbons and O'Donnell all rely on the following sources for their assessment of Keynes's approach to probability,which does,in fact,underlie his general philosophical views.The first source is F Ramsey's two error filled reviews of the TP that were published in 1922 and 1926,respectively.The second source is Keynes's 1931 review of a volume of Ramsey'
s collected works in a New Statesman article.The third source is the third chapter of the TP where Keynes provided an introductory discussion of the problem of measuring probabilities.There are a number of errors in Ramsey's review.I will concentrate on one of them,the misinterpretation of Keynes's definition of the word " nonnumerical" by Ramsey.Ramsey interprets Keynes to mean that quantitative estimates of probability can rarely be accomplished in general.Numbers can't be used to estimate probabilities.Ramsey then concludes that Keynesian probabilities and degrees of belief are "mysterious".On page 37 of the TP,Keynes informed the reader that no conclusions could be reached until Part II of the TP had been covered.On page 160,Keynes defines nonnumerical to mean that probabilities would lie "...BETWEEN numerical limits"(Note Keynes's emphasis on the word between).Keynes bases his entire discussion of induction and analogy,contained in Part III of the TP,on his interval approach to probability as specified in chapters 15 and 17 of the TP.Keynes correctly rejects Ramsey's approach because it can't be used to analyze argument from analogy or induction.For new knowledge to be discovered by any scientific method requires,as a necessary condition,that the researcher be able to perceive or intuit a logical,objective connection or objective relation of probability between the body of evidence available to the scientist and his new insight and/or discovery that other existing members of the scientific community will not perceive.Induction and analogy are the ways that new knowledge is generated.Ramsey rejected this and instead chose to emphasis the mere manipulation of the probability calculus in a strictly deductive fashion.No new knowledge is possible in the Ramsey approach because no individual scientist's intuition will allow him to discover the new result that is their waiting to be discovered.On page 63,it is claimed that Keynes argued "...that we know very little".The author must have meant that Keynes was referring to the economic future.We know very little about the economic future because of future technological innovation and advance over time.However ,this problem is theoretically solveable if the public and private sectors interact in a unified way through an explicit policy of organized cooperation.This was the purpose of Keynes's public investment concept.It has been rejected on political and ideological grounds by the forces of banking and finance.Ball only hints at this in his book.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: If you skipped those economic or political lectures in your History of the Twentieth Century class, or if you simply need a refresher course, this hefty tome will walk you through the "isms" of the past 100 years. Editors Terence Ball and Richard Bellamy offer a remarkably thorough history that runs the gamut from fascism to Keynes, from feminism to environmentalism, from surrealism to mystical racism, and in a way that makes you realize that they're all intertwined. Be forewarned, though, this isn't light reading. It's a dense, academic work by major political thinkers. We suggest this book to anyone interested in putting today's political climate into historical context. If you are involved in the financial life of Europe or the United States, this is your back story.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: If you skipped those economic or political lectures in your History of the Twentieth Century class, or if you simply need a refresher course, this hefty tome will walk you through the "isms" of the past 100 years. Editors Terence Ball and Richard Bellamy offer a remarkably thorough history that runs the gamut from fascism to Keynes, from feminism to environmentalism, from surrealism to mystical racism, and in a way that makes you realize that they're all intertwined. Be forewarned, though, this isn't light reading. It's a dense, academic work by major political thinkers. We suggest this book to anyone interested in putting today's political climate into historical context. If you are involved in the financial life of Europe or the United States, this is your back story.