Why is Clive Bell, an Artist with no Training in Logic, Mathematics, Statistics or Probability, being cited as an Expert on J M Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability?

Abstract

Ramsey’s criticism, that “… the obvious one is that there really do not seem to be any such things as the probability relations he describes”, ignored Keynes’s analysis, for example, on page 36 of the A Treatise on Probability that required the propositions linking the premises and conclusion had to be similar. Ramsey ignored the fact that Keynes’s method was based on using Boole’s relational, propositional logic that required that the propositions had to be connected, related or similar before the formal, mathematical, symbolic logic could be applied. Keynes pointed out that the “…analogy between orders of similarity and probability is so great that its apprehension will greatly assist that of the ideas I wish to convey” (Keynes, 1921, p.36; italics added). Ramsay failed to grasp Keynes’s analogy between similarity and probability before criticizing Keynes. Ramsey’s main example of supposed errors in Keynes’s analysis relies on examples, such as his “My carpet is green, Napoleon was a great general “(Ramsey, 1922, p.3), which involves dissimilar and unrelated propositions which are not connected. Keynes’s introductory comments on p.36 were then explored in Part III of the A Treatise on Probability in far greater depth and detail by Keynes. Keynes’s objective, probability relations are simply objective relations connecting old, known situations with new situations that can be shown to be related. Human pattern recognition skills involve using resemblance functions based on past memory that projects past knowledge of old situations into new situations, where there are similarities that are seen to exist between the old, known situation and a new, unexplored situation. One then can come up with a rational degree of belief regarding how some new situation will play out, given the similarities that exist between the old and new situations. All of Ramsey’s examples attacking Keynes’s theory involve examples such as the green carpet -Napoleon example above. Herbert ......