Paper Status Tracking

Journals by Title

Journals by Subject

Contact us

	[email protected]
	3275638434

	Paper Publishing WeChat

Useful Links

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Article

Open Access

An Anatomy of the Concept of Time in Maynard Keynes

Author(s)

Mogens Ove Madsen

Full-Text PDF Download XML 455 Views

DOI:10.17265/2328-7144/2017.02.007

Affiliation(s)

Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

ABSTRACT

One of the most striking changes in economic, thinking which comes primarily with John Maynard Keynes, is his explicit focus on time. For example, it appears early in a part of Keynes’s writings that prediction is a very difficult matter. Due to the near impossibility of prediction of the future, uncertainty is a central theme relatively early of Keynes’s economic thinking. This theme regarding prediction also implies that Keynes makes a clear distinction between short- and long-term expectations. Theory was to be concerned mainly with the present and with short period situations and the explicit attention to the concept of time, and subsequent alternative method of analysis has led to a number of innovations in economic thinking. This paper will address Keynes’s handling of the concept of time from three angles: studying his philosophical background, his understanding of society, and his development of economic theory.

KEYWORDS

time, uncertainty, prediction, money, A-series, B-series

Cite this paper

References

Backhouse, R. E., & Bateman, B. W. (2006). The Cambridge companion to Keynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carabelli, A. M. (1988). On Keynes’s method. London: Macmillan Press.

Chick, V. (1983). Macroeconomics after Keynes—A reconsideration of the General Theory. Oxford: Philip Allan.

Davis, J. B. (1994). Keynes’s philosophical development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harrod, R. F. (1938). Correspondence with Keynes. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.). (2012), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 14) (pp. 321-350). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hegel, G. W. F. (2000). Phenomenology of spirit (electronic edition). Oxford: The Oxford University Press Translations.

Jespersen, J., & Madsen, M. O. (2012). Keynes’s General Theory for today—Contemporary perspectives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Kant, I. (1998). Kritik der reinenvernunft. Berlin: AkademieVerlag.

Keynes, J. M. (1903). Essay on time. The papers of John Maynard Keynes. JMK/UA/17. Cambridge: Kings College Library.

Keynes, J. M. (1904). Essay on Edmund Burke. The papers of John Maynard Keynes. JMK/UA/20. Cambridge: Kings College Library.

Keynes, J. M. (1921). A treatise on probability. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 8). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1923). A tract on monetary reform. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 4). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1930). A treatise on money. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 5). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1936a). A monetary theory of production, contribution to “Der stand und die nächste zukunft der konjunkturforschung. Festschrift für Arthur Spiethoff”. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 13) (pp. 408-412). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1936b). The general theory of employment, interest and money. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 7). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1937a). British foreign policy, article in The New Statesman and Nation. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 28) (pp. 61-65). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1937b). The general theory of employment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51(2), 209-223.

Keynes, J. M. (1938a). Letter to Harrod. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 14) (pp. 295-305). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keynes, J. M. (1938b). My early beliefs. In E. Johnson, D. Moggridge, and A. Robinson (Eds.), The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes (Vol. 10) (pp. 433-450). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McTaggart, J. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 12(48), 457-474.

Moore, G. E. (1897). In what sense, if any, do past and future time exist? Mind, 6, 235-240.

Øhrstrøm, P. (2011). Towards a common language for the discussion of time based on Prior’s tense logic. In A. Vatakis, A. Esposito, M. Giagkou, F. Cummins, and G. Papadelis (Eds.), Multidisciplinary aspects of time and time perception (pp 46-57). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Runde, J., & Mizuhara, S. (2003). The philosophy of Keynes’s Econoics. Probability, uncertainty and convention. London: Routledge.

Termini, V. A. (1981). Logical, mechanical and historical time in economics. Economic Notes, 10(3), Munich Personal RePEc Archive. Paper No. 24491.

Togati, T. D. (1998). Keynes and the neoclassical synthesis. Einstein versus Newtonian macroeconomics. London: Routledge.