This essay proposes a novel reading of Keynes’ General Theory, tracing its intellectual roots back to nineteenth century physics in order to understand the complex relationship between individuals and macroeconomics’ aggregate quantities. In his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Keynes argues that the economy as a whole has its own organic existence, irreducible to the individual agents making decisions within it.
My Brown University honors thesis was an epistemological study of scientific revolution, using Kuhn, Althusser, and Foucault. The thesis is structured around a close reading of Einstein’s 1905 papers, which broke with the mechanical view of classical physics.
We can situate the transition from Newtonian mechanics to the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory can be placed in Foucault’s epistemic scheme developed in The Order of Things
One of my two majors at Brown University was an independent concentration I designed, called Modern Critical Philosophy. It focused on continental philosophy, while drawing from courses in analytic philosophy, gender studies, political economy, and Africana studies.