Deirdre N. McCloskey on John Maynard Keynes

“I guess no one will be surprised that the story of Keynes’ life and thought makes me think about the “rhetoric” of economics. My thought is this: Keynes was a Sophist, not a Platonist. To read him as a Platonist, as economists mostly have, makes him nearly impossible to understand.”

“Keynes is misunderstood by modern Platonists, who keep trying to find his Truth, keep trying to stuff him into a stable Platonic theory. Right from the beginning Platonic thinkers like Friedrich Hayek and J. R. Hicks could not grasp his method. (...) The very title of the General Theory embodies this sophistic tactic.”