Session 43, John Maynard Keynes: A Bloomsbury Member in Search of Lost Reason

Abstract: 

John Maynard Keynes’s philosophical outlook evolved during his illustrious career as an economist-philosopher in the first half of the twentieth century. This evolution was closely intertwined with debates surrounding what constitutes the domain of reason within the Bloomsbury group, a set of intellectuals, artists, and writers that counted Keynes among its members. These debates were spurred by the outbreak of the Great War and the presentation of Clive Bell’s aesthetic theory in 1914. Keynes’s complex reaction to these debates left its mark on his philosophy of probability presented in A Treatise on Probability (1921).

Suggested Reading: 

The Early John Maynard Keynes: An Intellectualist Becomes Disappointed

Speaker’s Biography: 

I serve as a research fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University, having earned my PhD from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. My research focuses on philosophical puzzles concerning what it takes to live a rational life in an uncertain world. My philosophical research draws rich inspiration from the nuanced histories of both science and philosophy.