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Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Philosophical Economics Année : 2018

Crises, confidence, and animal spirits: exploring subjectivity in the dualism of Descartes and Keynes

Résumé

This paper will explore the nuanced epistemological status of the economic subject in Keynes' work, alongside the physiology of the human subject in Descartes' Passions of the Soul and Treatise on Man. In both instances 'animal spirits' serve as an indicator of dualism within the subject. In Descartes, the spirits mediate between the soul and the body, between the rational and non-rational, by their effect on the pineal gland. In Keynes, animal spirits push up against a certain form of economic rationality and represent a non-rational impulse inherent to human nature that is often opposed to economic reason. While Keynes' conception of economic subjectivity extends well beyond the rationalism of many of his predecessors, the dualism presented in his work by means of the animal spirits is worth considering in philosophical terms. Ultimately this paper will conclude that Keynes' work contains an element of what Gilbert Ryle (1949) has termed the 'intellectualist legend,' that is, the philosophical assumption that we must think first, and then act, relegating spontaneous action to the realm of the 'animal' or the 'non-rational.'
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hal-03721392 , version 1 (12-07-2022)

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Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Partage selon les Conditions Initiales

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Sonya Marie Scott. Crises, confidence, and animal spirits: exploring subjectivity in the dualism of Descartes and Keynes. Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2018, Volume XI Issue 2 (2), pp.1-28. ⟨10.46298/jpe.10709⟩. ⟨hal-03721392⟩
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