Synopsis
There is, first of all, the distinction between that part of our belief which is rational and that part which is not. If a man believes something for a reason which is preposterous or for no reason at all, and what he believes turns out to be true for some reason not known to him, he cannot be said to believe it rationally, although he believes it and it is in fact true. On the other hand, a man may rationally believe a proposition to be probable, when it is in fact false. -from Chapter II: Probability in Relation to the Theory of Knowledge His fame as an economist aside, John Maynard Keynes may be best remembered for saying, In the long run, we are all dead. That phrase may well be the most succinct expression of the theory of probability every uttered. For a longer explanation of the premise that underlies much of modern mathematics and science, Keynes's A Treatise on Probability is essential reading. First published in 1920, this is the foundational work of probability theory, which helped establish the author's enormous influence on modern economic and even political theories. Exploring aspects of randomness and chance, inductive reasoning and logical statistics, this is a work that belongs in the library of any interested in numbers and their application in the real world. AUTHOR BIO: British economist JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946) also wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), The End of Laissez-Faire (1926), The Means to Prosperity (1933), and General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).
Présentation de l'éditeur
Excerpt from A Treatise on Probability
The subject matter of this book was first broached in the brain of Leibniz, who, in the dissertation, written in his twenty-third year, on the mode of electing the kings of Poland, conceived of Probability as a branch of Logic. A few years before, "un probleme," in the words of Poisson, "propos a un austere janseniste par un homme du monde, a eté Forigine du calcul des probabilites." In the intervening centuries the algebraical exercises, in which the Chevalier de la Mere interested Pascal, have so far predominated in the learned world over the profounder enquiries of the philosopher into those processes of human faculty which, by determining reasonable preference, guide our choice, that Probability is oftener reckoned with Mathematics than with Logic. There is much here, therefore, which is novel, and, being novel, unsifted, inaccurate, or deficient. I propound my systematic conception of this subject for criticism and enlargement at the hand of others, doubtful whether I myself am likely to get much further, by waiting longer, with a work, which, beginning as a Fellowship Dissertation, and interrupted by the war. has already extended over many years.
.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
