Adam Smith was the first economist, philosopher or mathematician in history to give a clear and specific definition of what the term “uncertainty” meant and to apply it consistently in his analysis of decision making in the Wealth of Nations. The term uncertainty for Smith, as it was for...

The Townshend–Keynes exchanges over decision making, weight of the argument (evidence), non numerical probabilities (Keynes’s term for Boole’s constituent probabilities, used in The Laws of Thought in 1854, that appears on page 163 of the A Treatise on Probability in chapter 15 on inexact...

Adam Smith completely rejected Utilitarianism in any form in his lifetime in his two major books, the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776). This paper will examine the basis for Smith’s rejection of Utilitarianism in the Wealth of Nations (1776) only. The Virtue...

J M Keynes stated the following on p.xii of his General Theory on December 13,1935: “I have also had much help from Mrs. Joan Robinson….who have read the whole of the proof-sheets.” (Keynes,1936, p.xii).In the course of an extensive correspondence with J. Robinson in the months of...

J. M. Keynes based the ethical foundations of the General Theory on a type of Virtue Ethics that he had learned from G. E. Moore. Keynes himself reinforced his understanding of Moore's version of Virtue ethics with extensive readings of the works of Plato and Aristotle. Keynes was one of the...

Keynes made a final reassessment of his chapter 15, Section IV simultaneous, four equation IS-LM model in Section IV of chapter 21 of the General Theory that is duplicated in his 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics article . In his 1937 reply, his summary of the two main reasons for his...

Keynes was extremely clear in Section Four of Chapter 21 of the General Theory that his theory of the rate of interest depended on three elements -The Liquidity Preference function, the m.e.c. schedule, and the consumption function-investment multiplier. All three elements determine the rate of...

J M Keynes's supposed attack on mathematical economics is a myth created by Joan Robinson and her fellow Pseudo Keynesians, Austin Robinson and Richard Kahn, as well as by many of their supporters. Nowhere does Keynes attack mathematical economics. Of course, he does attack “pseudo...

The major error made in the history of economic thought concerning Keynes's General Theory is the false belief that he was a Marshallian who would only use partial equilibrium analysis and would NEVER use systems of simultaneous, mathematical equations .Of course, Keynes was very critical in the...