A Treatise on Probability

KEYNES John Maynard

Published by Publication Date: 1921

First edition. 8vo. [2], xi, [1], 466, [2, publisher's advertisements] pp. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt and ruled in gilt, ruling continued to boards in blind (early bookseller's label of 'Parker & Son., Oxford' to front pastedown, text block split at pp. 80-81, small paper loss to lower corner of pp. 409-12, not effecting text; extremities rubbed and bumped, rear joint cracked but holding firmly, a good copy only). London, MacMillan and Co., Ltd. A nice association copy of Keynes's principal mathematical-philosophical work, with distinguished provenance from two successive generations of British philosophers: (1) from the library of Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (1911-1960), best-known for his theory of speech acts and often thought of 'as the paradigmatic linguistic philosopher' (ODNB), with his book label signed and dated 'John Austin 37' to the front free endpaper; (2) Austin's book label has been pasted directly above the earlier ownership inscription of Stanley Victor Keeling (1894-1979), 'Stanley Keeling Trinity Coll. Cambridge', who, despite having been studied with Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead at Trinity, remained a disciple of the idealist philosopher J.M.E. McTaggart. With pencilled marginal highlighting and underlining in an unidentified hand to pp. 4-5, pencilled underlining and marginal highlighting to pp. 4-5, 218-221, 245, 247, and 256; partially erased pencilled marginal annotation to p. 248; red pencilled marginal highlighting to pp. 250-252 with a single marginal annotation 'Df.' (i.e. 'definition') in Austin's hand to p. 251. The subject of Keynes's fellowship dissertation, in which he sought to establish a mathematical basis for probability theory as Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead had done for symbolic logic. Russell wrote of this work 'the mathematical calculus is astonishingly powerful, considering the very restricted premises which form its foundation . the book as a whole is one which it is impossible to praise too highly' (quoted in DSB). The work contains a valuable bibliography of some 600 works on probability. Seller Inventory # 234303

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Treatise on Probability
Publication Date: 1921
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition