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Keynes's Theory of Probability and Its Relevance to His Economics: Three Theses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Allin Cottrell
Allin Cottrell
Affiliation:
Wake Forest University
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Extract

One calls a lot of things propositions. If one sees this, then one can discard the idea Russell and Frege had that logic is a science of certain objects – propositions, functions, the logical constants – and that logic is like a natural science such as zoology and talks about these objects as zoology talks of animals. Like a natural science, it could supposedly discover certain relations. For example, Keynes claimed to discover a probability relation which was like implication, yet not quite implication. But logic is a calculus, not a natural science, and in it one can make inventions but not discoveries.

Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end; – but the end is not certain propositions' striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game. (Wittgenstein, 1969, §204)

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 25 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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