An attempt at reading Keynes' Treatise on Probability
Statistics Theory
2010-10-19 v3 History and Overview
Statistics Theory
Abstract
The book A Treatise on Probability was published by John Maynard Keynes in 1921. It contains a critical assessment of the foundations of probability and of the current statistical methodology. As a modern reader, we review here the aspects that are most related with statistics, avoiding a neophyte's perspective on the philosophical issues. In particular, the book is quite critical of the Bayesian approach and we examine the arguments provided by Keynes, as well as the alternative he proposes. This review does not subsume the scholarly study of Aldrich (2008a) relating Keynes with the statistics community of the time.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1003.5544,
title = {An attempt at reading Keynes' Treatise on Probability},
author = {Christian P. Robert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.5544},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
Revised version, 18 pages, five pictures of Keynes