“Keynes’s realisms and their roots”
Ricardo F. Crespo1
Abstract: Some authors have signalled a realist orientation in Keynes’s thought (although many times
assigning different meaning to this label). This paper will maintain that Keynes held an ontological,
epistemic and logical-semantic realism. As recognized by those scholars, Moore’s philosophy has had a
deep influence in Keynes´s realism. However, nobody has developed the possible influence of Franz
Brentano. Instead, they have appraised the issue of Keynes’s realism from different traditions, frequently
alien or posterior to Keynes. The paper will show that Brentano’s influence helps to arrive at a clarifying
interpretation of Keynes’s realism and of his key notion of intuition. It will also maintain that this is the
central contribution of Keynes’s epistemology.
Some authors have signalled a realist orientation in Keynes’s thought.2 This paper will maintain
that Keynes held an ontological, logical-semantic and epistemic realism. The paper will also
postulate a possible relation with Brentano’s thinking. Firstly, the former realisms will be
defined. Second, the Keynes-relevant Brentano’s thoughts will be presented. Third, the paper
will show the evidence of those realisms in Keynes’s works and their relation with Brentano and
Moore’s ideas. The last section will show the centrality of the notion of intuition in Keynes’s
thought and contribution to epistemology.
Three realisms
What is the meaning of realism and what kinds of realism we may distinguish?
Within authors of our field –philosophy of economics- Tony Lawson says in his recent
“Keynes’s realist orientation”:
“In recent years an increasing number of economists have come to appreciate the
relevance of ontology to a social science such as economics. By this I mean that they
have recognized the importance of investigating the nature of social material or social
being, and of taking their findings on this into account in determining methods of
analysis efficacious with respect to social phenomena. Theories of the nature and
structure of the material dominion of reality are usually designated forms of (ontological)
realism. My concern here is with the fashioning of realists theories for economics (...) Let
me call an explicit orientation to ontological issues such as I am identifying a realist
orientation.”3
Uskali Mäki had previously and thoroughly tackled the issue of diverse realisms.4 He
even proposed to distinguish between realism –a philosophical meta-theory, i.e., a theory of
theories- and realisticness –a property of a theory or representation-. 5
Today, philosophical literature about realism is outstanding and not embraceable. In this
paper I will define three forms, taking them from a combination of Mäki’s classification and
1
IAE (Universidad Austral) and CONICET. E-mail: [email protected]. I acknowledge contributions of
José Tomás Alvarado to a previous version of this paper.
2
Cf., e.g., Tony Lawson, 2003, passim, John Davis, 1994, passim, Sheila Dow 2003, p. 214.
3
Lawson 2003, 159-160. See also his Economics and Reality, Routledge, 1996 and his Reorienting
Economics, Routledge, 2003..
4
See Mäki 1989 and 1998.
5
In this paper I will analyse the meta-theory of Keynes, not the characteristics of his economic theory.
Thus, I will not deal with the issue of realisticness.
1
current philosophy, specially taking into account the balanced article of Edward Craig “Realism
and Anti-realism.”6 These three kinds of realisms are:
1. Ontological realism: Craig says:
“The basic idea of realism is that the kinds of things which exist, and what they are like,
are independent of us and the way in which we find about them.”7
He is not speaking of causal (in)dependence nor does he entail an antirealist stance
towards the mental. Mäki suggests the expression “exists recognition-independently” to
completely avoid a possible restriction of the scope of realism to the physical realm. 8 In any
way the key notion of ontological realism is “independence” of how anyone thinks or feels
about things. This position is the basis for what will follow. It is the one present in Lawson’s
previous quotation. However, Lawson implicitly unfolds also other kinds of realism in the paper
quoted.
2. Logical-semantic realism: This kind of realism holds that the propositions about
entities in respect to which there is an ontological commitment, are true (or false) if the
conditions of truth of these propositions hold (or not) determinatively, objectively and
independently of our knowledge capacities. As Mäki says,
“(…) semantic realism is the thesis that the thesis contained in scientific theories are
genuine, true or false, statements about the real world and that they have a truth value
irrespective of whether we are able to determine it.”9
3. Finally, epistemic realism: This version maintains
“That the Xs that are claimed to exist are also knowable. Different forms of
epistemological realism presuppose some versions of ontological realism and semantic
realism and add to them the idea of being known or being knowable. Epistemological
realism says of some existing X that facts about X are known or can be known, implying
that knowers have epistemic access to X, that there is no veil separating the cognitive
subject and the existing object.”10
Or, as Arthur Fine maintains about scientific realism:
“On the other hand it is an epistemological doctrine asserting that we can know what
individuals exist and that we can find out the truth of the theories or laws that govern
them.”11
This is the version of realism which has a direct connection with the theory of knowledge. I
think that this classification and these definitions are clear and that they do not imply an
excessive simplification of this difficult topic.
Brentano in relation with Keynes
Moore and Russell have been often considered the authors who have most influenced Keynes’s
philosophical thought. Some recent commentators have spoken about an Aristotelian flavour in
6
Cf. Craig 1998.
Craig 1998, 105.
8
Mäki 1998, 406.
9
Mäki 1998, 406.
10
Mäki 1998, 407.
11
Fine 1998, 581.
7
2
Keynes’s considerations about the practical area.12 Exception made of a reference in a letter to
Strachey about “that superb Aristotle” after reading Nichomaquean Ethics,13 Keynes never
referred to this Greek Philosopher. However, he indirectly has had another contact with him,
through the Austrian Aristotelian Franz Brentano.
In his 1903 Preface to Principia Ethica, Moore told the readers that he had read a book
by Brentano. He considered Brentano’s position as the closest to his, closer than any other
moral philosopher he had ever known. Moore then explained the reasons for his agreements
and announces a critical review about the book. He began this review by stating: “This is a far
better discussion of the most fundamental principles of Ethics than any others with which I am
acquainted.”14 Brentano’s book read and reviewed by Moore was The Origin of the Knowledge
of Right and Wrong.15
This is the way Keynes came to know Brentano’s book. He wrote to Lytton Strachey
(July, 8, 1905):
“I have been re-reading Principia Ethica and want to write a long criticism of it –but it is
doubtful whether I shall. Also Brentano’s book, which Moore refers to in his preface. The
latter is most eminent. He has practically arrived at Moorism but without the Method –or
at least he has a different method.”16
Bateman shows the meaning of this reference to Method:17 Keynes complained about the
hardness and sometimes arbitrary character of Moore’s method. 18 However, the matter of
Method is accidental: his appraisal of Brentano as ‘eminent’ goes beyond it. What is relevant is
the content of Brentano’s thought and its similarities with Moore‘s.
Brentano’s program is to find rules of ethics as logic laws, which are naturally valid (9),
i.e., to look for “a certain intrinsic correctness” (11). It is the same project of Moore, of Russell
looking for logical rules for mathematics or Keynes trying a logical theory of probability.
Which are Brentano´s contributions that might have influenced Keynes?
1. His intuitive presentations, and
2. his notion of truth,
1. Brentano introduces in his book the notion of intuitive presentations.19 These may
have a physical or psychological content:
12
E.g., Anna Carabelli 1988, John Coates 1996. However, these positions have a postmodern or
pragmatic tone, which I consider anachronic with Keynes’s intellectual background.
13
Letter to Lytton Strachey, 23 January 1906, quoted by Skidelsky 1983, 167. “Have you read the Ethics
of that superb Aristotle? There never was such good sense talked –before or since.” It is indeed a
statement to be take into account! The dates make us realize that Keynes read Aristotle’s Ethics after
reading Brentano. In some way we may say that he read Aristotle from Moore and Brentano’s point of
view.
14
Moore 1903b, 115.
15
I will quote it in the text by putting the number of the page into parentheses. All italics quoted are in the
text. I use the version by Chisholm (see references). I could not find the version translated by Cecil
Hague, published in 1902 by Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd., in London, which was the one read by
Moore and Keynes.
16
Quoted by Bateman 1996, 26-7.
17
Keynes describes Moore as a “puritan and precisian” (“My Early Beliefs,” in Keynes’s Collected
Writings, (CW), X, 435).
18
See Bateman 1996, 20-7.
19
“To intuit” comes from the Latin verb “in-tueor,” to look into or towards. It is the Latin-originated
version of “insight”: “1. an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, esp. through intuitive
understanding (…) 2. penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or
underlying truth.” “Intuit” means “to know or receive by intuition” and intuition means “direct
3
“Those that have a physical content may be distinguished in a variety of ways. By
reference to the basic distinctions among sense qualities (…), we may determine the
number of different senses” (14). “And those intuitive presentations that have
psychological content may also be distinguished in a variety of ways. By reference to the
basic distinctions among intentional relations, we may determine the number of basic
psychological categories” (15).
The psychological phenomena are of these kinds: 1. ideas (Vorstellungen),20 2.
judgements, 21 and 3. emotions. The first class cannot be said to be either correct or incorrect,
true or false; ideas simply capture or not the thing. Instead judgements and emotions may be
correct or incorrect. All our concepts have their origin “in certain intuitive presentations” (13).
Concerning judgements, some of them involve nothing that manifests correctness; thus, the fact
that they are affirmed is no indication of their truth. But concerning some other Brentano’s
affirmations:
“there are many propositions which we come to know in a natural way and which are
incontestably certain and universally valid for all thinking beings (…) An example is the
Pythagoream theorem” (6) “[C]ertain other judgements (…) are ‘insightful’ or ‘evident’.
The law of contradiction is one example. Other examples are provided by the so-called
inner perception, which tells me that I am now having such-and-such sound or colour
sensations, or that I am now thinking or willing this or that (…)22 [I]n this case the clarity
of the judgement is such as to enable us to see that the question [‘Why do you really
believe that?’] has no point; indeed, the question would be completely ridiculous.” (1920).
And then he adds,
“If we are to find that which distinguishes insights from all other judgements, we must
look for it in the inner peculiarities of the act of insight itself. (78) (…) The peculiar
nature of insight –the clarity and evidence of certain judgements which is inseparable
from their truth- has little or nothing to do with a feeling of compulsion (79) (…) “What I
am saying here pertains to the nature of truth: anyone who perceives something as true is
also able to see that he is justified in regarding it as true for all (80) (…) “What is evident
is certain; and certainty in the strict sense of the term knows no distinction of degree”
(83).
Someone who knows Keynes’s thought has already realised the similarity between these
intuitive presentations and Keynes’s “direct knowledge” or “intuition”. However, he will not
probably recognize a correspondence in Keynes of Brentano´s following notion of the truth, for
it is one of the new proposals I hold in this paper. I wish to distinguish different notions of truth
in Brentano (and then in Keynes). These are related. He says that “[W]e call a thing true when
the affirmation relating to it is correct” (18). Here there are present two notions of truth: the
truth (correctness) of the affirmation and the truth of the thing. More clearly,
“We use the expressions “true” and “false” in a number of different ways. Taking them in
the strict and proper sense, we speak of true and false judgements; then (modifying the
meanings somewhat) we also speak of a “true friend” or “false gold”. It is hardly
necessary to observe that when I spoke in the lecture of things being true or false, I was
perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.” (Webster’s
Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary). The immediateness of intuition does not necessarily discard the
sensation or concept, i.e., the representation. In this case, sensation or concept are transparent. Sensitive
or intellectual knowledge pass through them directly to the thing, without stopping at them.
20
“merely contemplating something, having the thing before the mind [Vorstellen]” (pp. 54-5).
21
He adds: “in addition to there being an idea or presentation of a certain object, there is a second
intentional relation which is directed upon this object” (16).
22
Keynes exemplifies in a similar way his notion of ‘direct knowledge’ (13).
4
using the terms in their derivative sense and not in their strict and proper sense. In this
derivative use, we may say that the true is that which is, and the false that which is not.
Just as Aristotle spoke of “òv os alethés”, i.e., a being in the sense of the true, we might
thus speak of a “alethès os ón”, i.e., a true in the sense of a being.” (73)
Traditionally, philosophy has baptised the truth of the thing as ‘ontological truth’, and the truth
of the judgement as a ‘logical truth’. Interestingly, then, he warns:
“It is often said that truth, in its strict sense, consists in a correspondence between a
judgment and its object (in an adequatio rei et intellectus, as the scholastics had put it). This
dictum is right in a certain sense, but it is easily misunderstood and has in fact led to serious
errors. Some have taken the correspondence to be a kind of identity which holds between
something in the judgment, or in the thought or idea at the base of the judgment, and
something to be found outside the mind. But this cannot be the meaning of “to correspond”
in the present context. It means rather “to be appropriate”, “to be in harmony with”, “to
suit”, “to be fitting to”.” (74)
That is, he proposes a correspondence theory of truth in which there is no identity between the
judgment (and the ideas that composes it) and the thing, but proportion.
Thus, we have in Brentano:23
- a theory of knowledge strongly lying on his notion of intuitive insight.
- a “correspondence” theory of truth. Truth is logical and ontological.
- a threefold notion of realism: he considers an ontological, a logical-semantic and an
epistemological notion of realism.
Ontological Realism is present in his book as an everywhere underlying supposition. That is,
there exists a world, independent of every mind.
Concerning logical-semantic realism, for Brentano there are objective criteria of truth. The rules
of logic have an intrinsic correctness, regardless of every human mind.
Finally, we can know the truth through intuitive insights.
Keynes in relation with Brentano
In this Section I will try to show that we can also find the three realisms here considered in
Keynes and what is their connexion with Brentano’s thought.
1. Ontological realism
Keynes did consider the external world. For him, reality is composed by things (material,
logical and mental) and properties. We live in a material universe (272).24 There are objects,
23
I did not add in the text another astounding coincidence with Keynes because it is not in the line of the
argument I want to make. After Keynes’s Apostle Paper ‘Ethics in Relation to Conduct’ (1903) and
before Chapter XXVIII of the Treatise on Probability (‘The Law of Great Numbers’), Keynes read this
passage of Brentano’s book: “We may be more disturbed, however, by the fact that it is often impossible
to measure the remote consequences of our actions. But this type of uncertainty need not discourage us, if
we really do love what is the best on the whole. Of those possible consequences which are equally
unknown, any one has as many chances in its favour as any of the others. According to the law of large
numbers, results will balance out in the long run. Hence if we choose a good that we are sure of, then a
plus will remain on the side of the good and our choice will be justified, just as it would be if it were to
stand alone” (33).
24
All quotations of Keynes in the text refer to his Treatise on Probability (CW, VIII).
5
properties and experiences, bodies and legal atoms, wholes and parts. Keynes takes for granted
that an independent reality exists, and that it is not only physical; there are things –thoughts,
logical relations, etc.- that transcend the material realm.
2. Logical-semantic realism
For Keynes there are objectively settled down criteria of truth. The value of probability (degree
of rational belief) is also independent of psychological realities. It is generally accepted that for
Keynes the logical realm was independent. We may choose the quotations on this. Take, for
example, this one:
“We believe that there is some real objective relation between Darwin’s evidence and his
conclusions, which is independent of the mere fact of our belief, and which is just as real
and objective, though of a different degree, as that which would exist if the argument
were as demonstrative as a syllogism. We are claiming, in fact, to cognise correctly a
logical connection (…)” (5).
This would be the right place to ask ourselves about Keynes’s notion of truth. Regarding
truth I will present three sets of quotations from the TP. The first is:
“The terms certain and probable describe the various degrees of rational belief about a
proposition which different amounts of knowledge authorise us to entertain. All
propositions are true or false, but the knowledge we have of them depends on our
circumstances.” (3), and “[t]he view, occasionally held, that probability is concerned with
degrees of truth, arises out of a confusion between certainty and truth” (16).
That is, truth or falsehood does not depend on our knowledge, and they are different from
certainty or probability of the belief. The second quotation is:
“Thus knowledge of a proposition always corresponds to actual truth in the proposition
itself. We cannot know a proposition unless it is in fact true” (11).
This statement follows the traditional conception about knowledge. From Plato to our days,
knowledge is, for most scholars, a justified true belief. 25 That is, the least we can assign to
knowledge is to be factive (to presuppose the truth), i.e., if we know that p, then it is that p. We
cannot know a set of things when this set of things is not in fact. This does not mean that our
intelligence is infallible, but only that if the thing known were not true, we would have an
epistemic state of mere belief, not of knowledge. Closer to Keynes than Plato or nowadays
philosophers, Russell affirms:
“[S]ome propositions are true and some false, just as some roses are red and some white;
that belief is a certain attitude towards propositions, which is called knowledge when they
are true, error when they are false.”26
Now, the third quotation. The context is Keynes’s analysis about the scope of probability.
Propositions that are subject of an argument must be possible subjects of knowledge if we are to
consider their relation of probability. Premisses cannot be self-contradictory and formally
inconsistent with themselves. He goes on to say that we have to make a distinction between a
set of propositions merely false in fact and a set formally inconsistent with itself. And then he
quotes Baruch Spinoza in this footnote:
25
See, for example, R. K. Shope, “Propositional Knowledge”, in J. Dancy and E. Sosa (1992), A
Companion to Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell, or M. Steup, “The Analysis of Knowledge”, in Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http: //plato.Stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/.
26
1904, 523.
6
“Spinoza had in mind, I think, the distinction between Truth and Probability in his
treatment of Necessity, Contingence and Possibility. Res enim omnes ex data Dei natura
necessario sequutae sunt, et ex necessitate naturae Dei determinatae sunt ad certo modo
existendum et operandum (Ethices, I, 33). That is to say, everything is, without
qualification, true or false. At res aliqua nulla alia de causa contingens dicitur, nisi
respectu defectus nostrae cognitionis (Ethices, I, 33, scholium). That is to say,
Contingence, or, as I term it, Probability, solely arises out of the limitations of our
knowledge. Contingence, in this wide sense, which includes every proposition which, in
relation to our knowledge, is only probable (this term covering all intermediate degrees of
probability), may be further divided into Contingence in the strict sense, which
corresponds to an a priori or formal Probability exceeding zero, and Possibility; that is to
say, into formal possibility and empirical possibility. Res singulares voco contingentes,
quatenus, dum ad earum solam essentiam attendimus, nihil invenimus, quos earum
existentiam necessario ponat, vel quid ipsam necessario secludat. Easdem res singulares
voco possibiles, quatenus, dum ad causas, ex quibus produci debent, attendimus,
nescimus, an ipsae determinatae sint ad easdem producendum (Ethices IV, Def. 3, 4)”
(footnote 1, 127 ).27
This light-shedding quotation opens a possibility, unknown till now, of interpreting Keynes’s
theory of truth. According to it, we can distinguish:
i). ontological truth: “everything is, without qualifications, true or false”. For Spinoza this truth
is necessary. For Keynes, instead, I would say that it is determined. Things may be essentially
contingent for him. 28 Thus, they are not necessary but determined which is compatible with
being contingent.
ii). logical truth: when we know ontological truth we have logical truth; as the second quotation
states, the proposition is actually, or in fact, true. Ontological and logical truths are truths of the
primary proposition, according to Keynes’s classification of propositions.29
iii). truth as formal consistency: it is the truth of the secondary proposition. Let us hear from
Keynes:
“A man may rationally believe a proposition to be probable when it is in fact false, if the
secondary proposition on which he depends is true and certain; while a man cannot
rationally believe a proposition to be probable even when it is in fact true, if the
secondary proposition on which he depends is not true. Thus rational belief of whatever
degree can only arise out of knowledge, although the knowledge may be of a proposition
secondary, in the above sense, to the proposition in which the rational degree of belief in
entertained” (11).30
27
The words ‘Truth’, Probability’, etc. are capitalised in the original version, not in the CW. Keynes
quotes Spinoza in Latin. The quotation is taken from a quite different context: Spinoza’s treatise about the
opera Dei. Keynes “uses” the quotation out of its context because this passage is useful to express what
he is postulating. The same words are expressing different contents in Spinoza and Keynes. According to
W. H. White’s translation (Oxford University Press) Spinoza says:
“All things have necessarily followed from the given nature of God, and from the necessity of His nature
have been determined to existence and action in a certain manner.” (I, 33) “[A]
thing cannot be called contingent unless with reference to a deficiency in our knowledge.” (I, 33, Schol.
1) “I call individual things contingent in so far as we discover nothing, whilst we attend to their essence
alone, which necessarily posits their existence or which necessarily excludes it. I call these individual
things possible, in so far as we are ignorant, whilst we attend to the causes from which they must be
produced, whether these causes are determined to the production of these things.” (IV, Defs. 3, 4).
28
This would require a justification I cannot provide here. I suppose the acceptance of this generally
accepted opinion.
29
“It will be convenient to call propositions such as p , which do not contain assertions about probabilityrelations [but about facts], ‘primary propositions’; and propositions such as q , which assert the existence
of a probability-relation, ‘secondary proposition’” (11).
30
In this quotation, italics added. For example, “the sun will raise tomorrow” is a primary proposition p.
“The proposition p [i.e., “the sun will raise tomorrow”] is highly probable” is a secondary proposition q.
7
Formal consistency is a pre-requisite for truth. However, not all which is formally consistent is
true, because, given that its existence does not necessarily follow from its essence, it may not be
determined to be (and to act). On the contrary, we may know or not what is true, which is
necessarily consistent.31
Thus, we have, as in Brentano, a correspondence theory of truth in Keynes. We also
have the categories of ontological and logical truth we considered in Brentano.
3. Epistemic realism
I will not expose Keynes´s theory of knowledge in detail, as developed in his Treatise on
Probability. I will provide only a sketchy description of it.
“We start from things,” Keynes affirms, “of various classes, with which we have (…)
direct acquaintance” (12): our own sensations, ideas and facts (cf. 12). The objects of
knowledge are propositions and knowledge can be obtained in two ways:
“directly, as the result of contemplating the objects of acquaintance; and indirectly, by
argument, through perceiving the probability-relation of the proposition, about which we
seek knowledge, to other propositions” (12).
The bridge between direct and indirect knowledge is set thanks to direct acquaintance with the
logical relation between the corresponding propositions. This passing from direct to indirect
knowledge is a mental process “of which it is difficult to give an account” (13). In any way,
“In the case of every argument it is only directly that we can know the secondary
proposition which makes the argument itself valid and rational (…) In all knowledge,
therefore, there is some direct element; and logic can never be made purely mechanical”
(15).
That is, for Keynes, a direct element of knowledge is the basis of all knowledge. In what sense
is he affirming that “logic can never be made purely mechanical”? He is meaning that logical
deductive rules are not enough: we will never be able to avoid a direct element. Moreover, this
direct element is the key for all knowledge. Deductive laws are mere mechanic.
Is this direct knowledge a mere knowledge of representations, or does it go beyond? If it
were knowledge of representations about reality but not of reality itself we were facing a
representationist position. 32
This is not the case. Keynes affirms in various occasions that knowledge transcends the
representation. For example when he says that
“[W]e are capable of direct knowledge about empirical entities which goes beyond a
mere expression of our understanding or sensation of them. (…) [W]e are capable, that is
to say, of direct synthetic knowledge about the nature of the objects of our experience”
(292-3).
Both are true. “Given that Paul comes every day, he will come tomorrow” is a primary proposition p.
“The proposition p is probable” is a secondary proposition q. It may be that finally Paul did not come;
thus the proposition q will be true, while the proposition p, false.
31
Keynes explains that “the great Leibniz” distinguished three degrees of conviction amongst opinions.
The first is “logical certainty”, and he clarifies, “or, as we should say, propositions known to be formally
true” (303).
32
Which is a position common to very different modern currents, highly criticised in our days. It is a way
of loosing reality reducing its knowledge to the knowledge of its representation.
8
He poses as examples the uniformity of nature and the law of causation. Also when he
affirms that:
“[Y]et in such cases [logical judgments] we believe that there may be present some
element of objective validity, transcending the psychological impulsion, with which
primarily we are presented. So also in the case of probability we may believe that our
judgments can penetrate into the real world, even though their credentials are subjective”
(56).
All these acts of penetration of reality considered by Keynes are termed direct knowledge
(as mentioned), “intuition or direct judgment” (56, 70, 121), “a faculty of direct recognition”
(57), “the hidden element of direct judgment or intuition” (69), “intuitive power” (76), “direct
judgment (…) by seeing” (121) in A Treatise on Probability. He speaks of “direct inspection”
and of “direct unanalysable intuition” in “My Early Beliefs” (437).
This faculty is parallel to Brentano’s intuition. They are referring to an intellectual
intuition of the essential features of the thing contemplated. Let us compare these statements,
the first by Brentano, and the second by Keynes -a few months after reading Brentano’s book:
“Our knowledge of what is truly and indubitably good arises from the type of experience
we have been discussing (…) [A]long with the experience of the given act of love or
hate, the goodness or badness of the entire class become obvious at a single stroke, so to
speak, and without any induction from particular cases” (24).
“Something gave in my brain and I saw everything quite clear in a flash. But as the
whole thing depends on intuiting the Universe in a particular way –I see that now- there
is no hope of converting the world except by Conversion, and that is pretty hopeless. It is
not a question of argument; all depends upon a particular twist in the mind.”33
This direct element does not annul the representative element, i.e., the concept and the
proposition. However, knowledge “passes through them” towards the thing known. If
knowledge stopped in the representation it would be ineffective. Let me provide a golf
metaphor. A good stroke highly depends on continuing the swing down with a good “follow
through.” If you stop the swing in the ball the stroke is ineffective. This “passing through” is the
position of both Brentano’s and Keynes’s theories of knowledge. Paraphrasing Keynes,
knowledge goes beyond the mere representation and penetrate the very reality. This is the
powerful characteristic of intellectual intuition. For Keynes it is an obscure process. For
Brentano it is simply intellectual abstraction of concept, and intuition of a proposition
expressing an evident principle. In anyway, we can surely affirm that Keynes held an epistemic
realism.
Thus, we have in Keynes:
1. A correspondence theory of truth as Brentano’s. An analogical notion of truth with
three meanings: ontological and logical truth, of the primary propositions, and truth as formal
consistency, of the secondary proposition. We also find these notions in Brentano.
2. A theory of knowledge strongly relying on his notion of intuitive insight, as Brentano’s.
3. A threefold notion of realism.
Is Keynes’s position closer to Brentano’s or to Moore’s?
33
From a Letter to Lytton Strachey, 17 January 1906, quoted by Bateman 1996, 36. Italics in both
quotations are mine except ‘intuiting’, also highlighted, which is in italics also in the original text.
9
Many scholars may argue that these notions may also be found in Moore and that he was
who influenced Keynes. I do not deny this. I am only arguing that Brentano´s thought may
reinforce some influences of Moore and might be an explanation to some differences between
Keynes and Moore. The relations between Keynes’s thought and Moore’s has been studied
extensively. Here I presuppose the knowledge of this issue. 34 Let us analyse some aspects.
1. The theory of truth:
Stewart Candlish called Moore’s theory of truth an “Identity Theory of Truth.” He
defined it in this way:
“The simplest and most general statement of the identity theory of truth is that when a
truth-bearer (e.g., a proposition) is true, there is a truth-maker (e.g., a fact) with which it
is identical and the truth of the former consists in its identity with the latter. The theory is
best understood by contrast with a rival such as the correspondence theory, according to
which the relation of the truth-bearer and the truth-maker is of correspondence rather than
identity.”35
In effect, for Moore the truth does not differ in any way from the reality to which it
corresponds:
“[I]ts seems plain that a truth differs in no respect from the reality to which it is supposed
merely to correspond: e.g. the truth that I exist differs in no respect from the
corresponding reality –my existence.”36
This quotation comes from the entry ‘truth’ written by Moore for Baldwin’s Dictionary of
Philosophy (1902). Baldwin himself clarify that in the following section (logical truth) the
‘correspondence’ view is presented. Correspondence in Brentano and Keynes is not identity, but
harmony, fitting. I have quoted Brentano on this. Brentano owes a rich Aristotelian background
on these topics. Concept is not identical with reality because reality is richer than concept.
Although concept contains the very form of the thing known, it does not “exhaust” it.
Concerning propositions the act of being of reality is different from the act of uniting concepts
of judgment. They cannot be identical for they are different acts. When there is correspondence
they are in harmony. However, the very content of these acts may differ and thus the
proposition may be false.
Keynes did not develop a theory of truth. However, he is not asserting an identity between
the proposition and reality.
Moore’s notion of truth is univocal and corresponds to an ontological truth of the identical
reality meant by the representation. According to him, the truth is of the proposition in itself not
of our affirmation about its truth (Principia Ethica, n. 86). Moore does not have a notion of
logical truth. Something is true not because we acknowledge it, but because it is true in itself
and, thus, we can affirm that it is true. Keynes distinguishes representations and things, and
knowledge passes through representations towards things. This doctrine is closer to Brentano.
2. Regarding Moore’s realism.
This is not an easy point.37 First we should circumscribe the period of Moore’s thought
that will be analysed, i.e. his period of influence over Keynes. This is around 1903. Then,
34
I develop these arguments extensively in a book in preparation.
2002.
36
“Truth and Falsity and Error”, in Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (ed. J. M. Baldwin), New
York: MacMillan, 1901, 717. Also quoted by T. Baldwin in his interesting paper on this issue: 1991, 40.
37
Largely debated by specialists on Moore as J. H. Sobel, H. Hochberg, G. Bergman, T. Regan.
35
10
something should be decided: Given that the representation is identical to reality, what is real,
the representation or reality? I cannot argue here why my conclusion is that it is reality and,
thus, Moore is realist. However, the issue is not clear as in Brentano and Keynes. Moore is not
uniting or synthesising what is logical and ontological in his concept or proposition, but
confusing these different dimensions.38 Keynes himself told it in this famous passage of “My
Early Beliefs”:
“Moore had a nightmare once in which he could not distinguish propositions for tables. But
even when he was awake, he could not distinguish love and beauty and truth from the
furniture. They took on the same definition of outline, the same stable, solid, objective
qualities and common-sense reality” (X, 444).
And coming back to the article about truth in the Baldwin’s Dictionary, Moore says:
“[R]eality can only be defined by reference to truth: for truth denotes exactly that property
of the complex formed by two entities and their relation, in virtue of which, if the entity
predicated be existence, we call the complex real –the property, namely, expressed by
saying that the relation in question does truly or really hold between the entities” (717).
That is, something is real if it is true, being “to be true” that existence is an entity predicated of
another entity. For Moore concepts are entities. One of these may be existence. There is truth in
a complex entity when existence can be predicated of another concept. If this relation really
holds the complex entity has the property of being true and thus it is real. In this way, Moore is
conferring a kind of being to entities previous to their very existence: this is his Platonism.
Aristotle had already refuted this position: there are no entities without existence. But he even
confers this entity to existence: this is a sort of ‘essentialisation’ of existence. Existence is not
an essence. Besides, he confuses the predicative ‘to be’ and the ontological ‘to be’. To predicate
Moore’s existence to a concept does not mean that the complex entity exists, for this predication
is logical and thus does not entail ontological existence. These confusions do not appear in
Brentano and Keynes, for they also have a logical conception of truth. Logical existence for
Keynes is real existence but as a logical –mental- reality.
Intuition, as a key notion
Some authors have affirmed that the adult Keynes replaced the notion of intuition for other
notions –e.g., convention- or that he transformed a solipsist notion of intuition in an
intersubjective notion. Here I do not want to discuss these points. I only want to quote a few
passages that show, in my opinion, that he always supports the key relevance of intuition or
theory in knowledge over the rôle of statistics, measurements and so on in the field of empirical
work. What is relevant is to know the theory, that is, the causal relations. This is a matter of
intellectual intuition. Empirical methods are secondary: they are a way to check whether the
theoretical insights are right or not.
I have presented some quotations from the Treatise on Probability (1921). I have also
presented a previous passage from a letter to Strachey –which I compare with one of Brentano.
Another passage I consider worth quoting describes his view of the scientific process in a paper
titled ‘Science and Art’, read to Apostles on 20 February 1909:
“He [the scientist] is presented with a mass of facts, possessing similarities and differences,
arranged in no kind of scheme or order. His first need is to perceive very clearly the precise
nature of the different details…. He [then] holds the details together clearly before his mind
and it will probably be necessary that he should keep them more or less before his mind for
a considerable time. Finally he will with a kind of sudden insight see through the obscurity
38
Cf. A. Millán Puelles 1990, 256.
11
of the argument or of the apparently unrelated data, and the details will quickly fall into
scheme or arrangement, between each part of which there is real connection.”39
After the Treatise on Probability, in a review to Frank Ramsey’s writings (1930) he
affirms:
“Thus he was led to consider ’human logic’ as distinguished from ‘formal logic’. Formal
logic is concerned with nothing but the rules of consistent thought. But in addition to this
we have certain ‘useful mental habits’ for handling the material with which we are
supplied by our perceptions and by our memory and perhaps in other ways, and so
arriving at or towards truth; and the analysis of such habits is also a sort of logic. The
application of these ideas to the logic of probability is very fruitful.” (CW, X, 338)
There is an interesting discussion about a supposedly change of mind of Keynes about the
nature of probability in this review. Besides this discussion, we can see that he speaks about
“useful mental habits” for handling our representations in order to arrive “at or towards truth.”
What is relevant for Keynes is not formal -mechanical- logic, but ‘human logic’. In fact, he
says,
“The gradual perfection of the formal treatment [of logic] at the hands of himself [Russell],
of Wittgenstein and of Ramsey had been, however, gradually to empty it of content and to
reduce it more and more to mere dry bones, until finally it seemed to exclude not only all
experience, but most of the principles, usually reckoned logical, of reasonable thought”
(CW, X, 338).
In this work, he also speaks about a methodical pluralism of the moral sciences “in which
theory and fact, intuitive imagination and practical judgment, are blended in a manner
comfortable to the human intellect” (CW, X, 335). His realist orientation pervades his
economics. He thinks that some issues within economics are of such nature that entail many
epistemological difficulties. In this field he also relies on intuition. Let us remember, for
example, an invocation to “practical intuition (which can take account of a more detailed
complex of facts than can be treated on general principles)” in his General Theory (1936)( CW,
VII, 249). In his essay on Marshall (1924) he has spoken of the amalgam, of logic and intuition
and the wide knowledge of facts required for economic interpretation (cf. CW,X, 186). In his
famous review to Tinbergen’s book and the letters that surround it, we can find –among othersaffirmations about this topic. He says to Kahn (August 23, 1938): “There is not the slightest
explanation or justification of the underlying logic.” (CW, XIV, 289). This first step was
fundamental for Keynes. According to the ‘economic material’ analysed, Tinbergen chose an
incorrect method. He kindly wrote this to Tinbergen on September 20 (294). The day after, he
more clearly writes: “I complain that this sort of logical point is not discussed –or even
mentioned. Until it, the whole thing is charlatanism in spite of T.’s admirable candour” (305).
The most relevant step in economics, Keynes affirms, is a correct election of models.
Economics is a way of thinking, a branch of logic, a science of thinking in terms of models (cf.
296, letter to Harrod, 4 July 1938). Unfortunately, he says,
“Good economists are scarce because the gift for using ‘vigilant observation’ to choose
good models, although it does not require a highly specialised intellectual technique,
appears to be a very rare one” (297).
Besides, “the object of statistical study is not so much to fill in missing variables with a view to
prediction, as to test the relevance and validity of the model” (296). In the very review, he
affirms:
“[T]he method is only applicable where the economist is able to provide beforehand a
correct and indubitably complete analysis of the significant factors. The method is one
39
Quoted by R. Skidelsky [1983] 1994, 159.
12
neither of discovery nor of criticism. It is a means of giving quantitative precision to
what, in qualitative terms, we know already as the result of a complete theoretical
analysis” (XIV, 308).
Turning back to correspondence with Harrod, however this time about Harrod’s paper on
dynamic theory, he finally asserts (September 26, 1938) after many letters going to and fro
between them:
“As a result of your last letter, I have, at last, seen in a flash what it is all about. My
intuition told me that your conclusion could not be true in general, but (…)” (XIV, 345).
Finally, in 1946 posthumously his brother read his essay on Newton, where he said:
I believe that the clue to his mind is to be found in his unusual powers of continuous
concentrated introspection (X, 364). His peculiar gift was the power of holding
continuously in his mind a purely mental problem until he had seen straight through it. I
fancy his pre-eminence is due to his muscles of intuition being the strongest and most
enduring with which a man has ever been gifted (…). It was his intuition which was preeminently extraordinary –‘so happy in his conjectures,’ said de Morgan, ‘as to seem to
know more than he could possibly have any means of proving.’ The proofs, for what they
are worth, were, as I have said, dressed up afterwards –they were not the instrument of
discovery (365). His experiments were always, I suspect, a means, not of discovery, but
always of verifying what he knew already.
I think that these quotations from different times, speaks to us about the priority of theory
according to Keynes, using the term ‘theory’ in the sense of an intuitive apprehension of the
essence and causality of a problem. This is, I think, the most important message of Keynes,
particularly relevant in the epoch he had to live, characterised by a general hegemony of
positivism.
Conclusion
Have I proved that Brentano influenced Keynes? To prove is too hard a verb in a
hypothetical field such as this. It would be better to say that I showed that there are astonishing
resemblances between some ideas of both thinkers, that Brentano wrote them before Keynes
and that Keynes read them before writing his Treatise on Probability. Given this, it is
reasonable to think that, at least, Brentano´s ideas may have reinforced the presence of Moore’s
ideas in Keynes’s thought and may have influenced him, probably even more than Moore in
some respects. However, Keynes did not quote him. I cannot conclude what is merely an
hypothesis. In any way, it is an hypothesis that raises other more important conclusions.
The main conclusion I wanted and tried to show in this paper is the relevance of
intellectual intuition, i.e., theory, according to Keynes’s thought concerning knowledge. This, in
my opinion, is the most relevant contribution or proposal of Keynes to epistemology. For
Keynes, the suspicion about theory and intuition has no foundation. Direct judgment does not
mean a weakness:
“the fact that we ultimately depend upon an intuition need not lead us to suppose that our
conclusions have, therefore, no basis in reason, or that they are as subjective in validity as
they are in origin (…)” (VIII, 76)
We should not confuse exactness with scientificity. Social sciences are not exact, but exactness
in them is not a virtue but an unrealistic error. Keynes also may make us think about some new
statistical fashions when he says:
13
“The (…) view, which the unreliability of some statisticians has brought into existence, that it is a positive advantage to approach statistical evidence without preconceptions based
on general ground, because the temptation to ‘cook’ the evidence will prove otherwise to be
irresistible, - has no logical basis and need only be considered when the impartiality of an
investigator is in doubt” (VIII, 338).
I have also shown with some technical philosophical precision the kinds of realisms
Keynes held. He was really a realist in the triple sense considered. This is also an explanation of
why he worries so much about finding the adequate method to each kind of subject. I also
proposed a triple notion of truth according to Keynes. This is a classification shared with
Brentano, and not with Moore.
The above tells us that Keynes was more than an economist. He was a talented
philosopher and a great social thinker.
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