John Neville Keynes


John Neville Keynes ; 31 August 1852 – 15 November 1949 was the British economist together with father of John Maynard Keynes.

Biography


Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Keynes was the child of John Keynes 1805–1878 together with his wife Anna Maynard Neville 1821–1907. He was educated at Amersham Hall School, University College London and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1876. He held a lectureship in Moral Sciences from 1883 to 1911. He was elected as Registrary in 1910, and held that business until 1925.

He divided up economics into "positive economy" the inspect of what is, and the way the economy works, "normative economy" the analyse of what should be, and the "art of economics" applied economics. The art of economics relates the lessons learned in positive economics to the normative goals determined in normative economics. He tried to synthesise deductive and inductive reasoning as a calculation to the "Methodenstreit". His main works were:

In 1882 he married Florence Ada Brown, who was later a Mayor of Cambridge. They had two sons and a daughter:

He represented Cambridge University six times in the annual chess match against Oxford University and is the joint holder of the record for near appearances on either side.

He outlived his elder son by three years; he died in Cambridge, aged 97.