Fundamental Uncertainty

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

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2. Introduction: Fundamental Uncertainty and Plausible Reasoning

   • Silva Marzetti Dall’Aste Brandolini, Roberto Scazzieri

   Pages 1-22

3. Logic, Empiricism and Probability Structures

   • Henry E. Kyburg Jr.

   Pages 23-38

4. The Weight of Argument

   • Isaac Levi

   Pages 39-58

5. A Critical Evaluation of Comparative Probability

   • Vincenzo Fano

   Pages 59-72

6. A Theory of Similarity and Uncertainty

   • Roberto Scazzieri

   Pages 73-103

7. Generalized Theory of Uncertainty: Principal Concepts and Ideas

   • Lotfi A. Zadeh

   Pages 104-150

8. Weight of Argument and Economic Decisions

   • Alessandro Vercelli

   Pages 151-170

9. The Relevance Quotient: Keynes and Carnap

   • Domenico Costantini, Ubaldo Garibaldi

   Pages 171-210

10. Non-Self-Averaging Phenomena in Macroeconomics: Neglected Sources of Uncertainty and Policy Ineffectiveness

    • Masanao Aoki

    Pages 211-231

11. A Critical Reorientation of Keynes’s Economic and Philosophical Thoughts

    • Izumi Hishiyama

    Pages 232-271

12. Uncertainty and Rationality: Keynes and Modern Economics

    • John Allen Kregel, Eric Nasica

    Pages 272-293

13. Moral Good and Right Conduct: A General Theory of Welfare under Fundamental Uncertainty

    • Silva Marzetti Dall’Aste Brandolini

    Pages 294-330

14. Back Matter

    Pages 331-348

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This volume addresses the subject of uncertainty from the point of view of an extended conception of rationality. In particular, the contributions explore the premises and implications of plausible reasoning when probabilities are non-measurable or unknown, and when the space of possible events is only partially identified.

• economics
• equilibrium
• John Maynard Keynes
• macroeconomics
• probability
• welfare

• University of Bologna, Italy

  Silva Marzetti Dall’Aste Brandolini, Roberto Scazzieri

SILVA MARZETTI DALL'ASTE BRANDOLINI is Professor of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy. She has published, amongst other research papers, 'Il comportamento razionale del policy maker', Economia Politica,1998; 'Economic and Social Demand for Coastal Protection',Coastal Engineering, 2005 (co-authored); 'Happiness and Sustainability: A Modern Paradox', in L. Bruni and P. L. Porta (eds), Handbook on the Economics of Happiness, Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Mass., 2007; 'Recreational Demand Functions for Different Categories of Beach Visitors', Tourism Economics, 2009. She has also edited (in collaboration with A. Pasquinelli), John Maynard Keynes, Trattato sulla probabilità (Italian translation of J. M. Keynes's A Treatise on Probability) and (in collaboration with R. Scazzieri), La probabilità in Keynes, Bologna, 1999.

ROBERTO SCAZZIERI is Professor of Economic Analysis, University of Bologna; Senior Member, Gonville and Caius College and Clare Hall, Cambridge. He won the St Vincent Prize for Economics, 1984 and the Linceo Prize for Economics, 2004. He has authored A Theory of Production. Tasks, Processes and Technical Practices, Oxford, 1993; co-edited Foundations of Economics. Structures of Inquiry and Economic Theory, Oxford, 1986; Production and Economic Dynamics, Cambridge, 1996; Knowledge, Social Institutions and the Division of Labour, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, US, 2001; Reasoning, Rationality and Probability, Stanford, 2008; The Migration ofIdeas, Sagamore Beach, 2008; Markets, Money and Capital. Hicksian Economics for the 21st Century, Cambridge, 2008; and Capital, Time and Transitional Dynamics, London and New York, 2009.

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