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Philosophical Papers
Frank Ramsey was the greatest of the remarkable generation of Cambridge philosophers and logicians which included G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Maynard Keynes. Before his tragically early death in 1930 at the age of twenty-six, he had done seminal work in mathematics and economics as well as in logic and philosophy. This volume, with a new and extensive introduction by D. H. Mellor, contains all Ramsey's previously published writings on philosophy and the foundations of mathematics. The latter gives the definitive form and defence of the reduction of mathematics to logic undertaken in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica; the former includes the most profound and original studies of universals, truth, meaning, probability, knowledge, law and causation, all of which are still constantly referred to, and still essential reading for all serious students of these subjects.
- GenresPhilosophyLogicEconomics
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
About the author
F.P. Ramsey
10 books21 followersFrank Plumpton Ramsey (B.A. (Senior Wrangler), Mathematics, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1923) was a philosopher, mathematician, economist, and a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the secret intellectual society.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 18, 2024
I’m surprised by how historically situated Ramsey’s papers are. They’re generally engaged with the views of people he knew at Cambridge, like Keynes, Russell, and Wittgenstein. So while they’re very interesting and impressive, they’re of more limited value than I hoped.
If you’re like me and not very familiar with type theory, the SEP entry really helps clarify some of Ramsey’s ideas in The Foundations of Mathematics.
If you’re like me and not very familiar with type theory, the SEP entry really helps clarify some of Ramsey’s ideas in The Foundations of Mathematics.
October 15, 2024
A COLLECTION OF ALL RAMSEY’S PREVIOUSLY-PUBLISHED WRITINGS ON PHILOSOPHY & MATHEMATICS
Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-1930) was a British philosopher, mathematician and economist who died at the age of 26 when he developed jaundice after an abdominal operation. He was a close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well.
In the first essay, he says, “I used to worry myself about the nature of philosophy through excessive scholasticism. I could not see how we could understand a word and not be able to recognize whether a proposed definition of it was or was not correct. I did not realize the vagueness of the whole idea of 1understanding, the reference it involves to a whole multitude of performances any of which may fail and require to be restored. Logic issues in tautologies, mathematics in identities, philosophy in definitions: all trivial but all part of the vital work of clarifying and organizing our thought.” (Pg. 1-2)
He observes, “It is a point which has often been made by Mr. [Bertrand] Russell that philosophers are very likely to be misled by the subject-predicate construction of our language. They have supposed that all propositions must be of the subject-predicate form, and so have been led to deny the existence of relations. I shall argue that nearly all philosophers, including Mr. Russell himself, have been misled by language in a far more far-reaching way than that; that the whole theory of particulars and universals is due to mistaking for a fundamental characteristic of reality what is merely a characteristic of language.” (Pg. 13)
In an essay on ‘Truth and Probability’ he explains, “I have not worked out the mathematical logic of this in detail, because this would, I think, be rather like working out to seven places of decimals a result only valid to two. My logic cannot be regarded as giving more than the sort of way it might work.” (Pg. 76)
He states, “I have always said that a belief was knowledge if it was (i) true, (ii) certain, (iii) obtained by a reliable process. The word ‘process’ is very unsatisfactory; we can call inference a process, but even then unreliable seems to refer only to a fallacious method not to a false premise as it is supposed to do. Can we say that a memory is obtained by a reliable process? I think perhaps we can if we mean the causal process connecting what happens with my remembering it. We might then say, a belief obtained by a reliable process must be caused by what are not beliefs in a way or with accompaniments that can be more or less relied on to give true beliefs, and if in this train of causation occur other intermediary beliefs these must all be true ones.” (Pg. 110)
He explains, “The object of this paper is to give a satisfactory account of the Foundations of Mathematics in accordance with the general method of Frege, Whitehead and Russell. Following these authorities, I hold that mathematics is part of logic, and so belongs to what may be called the formalist and intuitionist schools. I have therefore taken ‘Principia Mathematica’ as a basis for discussion and amendment; and believe myself to have discovered how, by using the work of Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein, it can be rendered free from the serious objections which have caused its rejection by the majority of German authorities, who have deserted altogether its line of approach.” (Pg. 164)
He admits, “Although it is certainly difficult to give a philosophical explanation of our knowledge of the laws of logic, I cannot persuade myself that I do not know for certain that the Law of Excluded Middle is true; of course, it cannot be proved, although Aristotle gave [an] … ingenious argument in its favor.” (Pg. 228-229)
In the final essay, he asserts, “[Russell’s] philosophy of value consisted in saying that the only questions about value were what men desired and how their desires could be satisfied, and then he went on to answer these questions. Thus the whole subject became part of psychology, and its discussion would be a psychological one. Of course his main statement about value might be disputed, but most of us would agree that the objectivity of good was a thing we had settled and dismissed with the existence of God. Theology and Absolute Ethics are two famous subjects which we have realized to have no real objects.” (Pg. 246-247)
It is indeed a huge loss to philosophy that Ramsey died so young; but this book will surely prove to any reader that he would have been one of the major figures on the philosophical landscape of the 20th century.
Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-1930) was a British philosopher, mathematician and economist who died at the age of 26 when he developed jaundice after an abdominal operation. He was a close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well.
In the first essay, he says, “I used to worry myself about the nature of philosophy through excessive scholasticism. I could not see how we could understand a word and not be able to recognize whether a proposed definition of it was or was not correct. I did not realize the vagueness of the whole idea of 1understanding, the reference it involves to a whole multitude of performances any of which may fail and require to be restored. Logic issues in tautologies, mathematics in identities, philosophy in definitions: all trivial but all part of the vital work of clarifying and organizing our thought.” (Pg. 1-2)
He observes, “It is a point which has often been made by Mr. [Bertrand] Russell that philosophers are very likely to be misled by the subject-predicate construction of our language. They have supposed that all propositions must be of the subject-predicate form, and so have been led to deny the existence of relations. I shall argue that nearly all philosophers, including Mr. Russell himself, have been misled by language in a far more far-reaching way than that; that the whole theory of particulars and universals is due to mistaking for a fundamental characteristic of reality what is merely a characteristic of language.” (Pg. 13)
In an essay on ‘Truth and Probability’ he explains, “I have not worked out the mathematical logic of this in detail, because this would, I think, be rather like working out to seven places of decimals a result only valid to two. My logic cannot be regarded as giving more than the sort of way it might work.” (Pg. 76)
He states, “I have always said that a belief was knowledge if it was (i) true, (ii) certain, (iii) obtained by a reliable process. The word ‘process’ is very unsatisfactory; we can call inference a process, but even then unreliable seems to refer only to a fallacious method not to a false premise as it is supposed to do. Can we say that a memory is obtained by a reliable process? I think perhaps we can if we mean the causal process connecting what happens with my remembering it. We might then say, a belief obtained by a reliable process must be caused by what are not beliefs in a way or with accompaniments that can be more or less relied on to give true beliefs, and if in this train of causation occur other intermediary beliefs these must all be true ones.” (Pg. 110)
He explains, “The object of this paper is to give a satisfactory account of the Foundations of Mathematics in accordance with the general method of Frege, Whitehead and Russell. Following these authorities, I hold that mathematics is part of logic, and so belongs to what may be called the formalist and intuitionist schools. I have therefore taken ‘Principia Mathematica’ as a basis for discussion and amendment; and believe myself to have discovered how, by using the work of Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein, it can be rendered free from the serious objections which have caused its rejection by the majority of German authorities, who have deserted altogether its line of approach.” (Pg. 164)
He admits, “Although it is certainly difficult to give a philosophical explanation of our knowledge of the laws of logic, I cannot persuade myself that I do not know for certain that the Law of Excluded Middle is true; of course, it cannot be proved, although Aristotle gave [an] … ingenious argument in its favor.” (Pg. 228-229)
In the final essay, he asserts, “[Russell’s] philosophy of value consisted in saying that the only questions about value were what men desired and how their desires could be satisfied, and then he went on to answer these questions. Thus the whole subject became part of psychology, and its discussion would be a psychological one. Of course his main statement about value might be disputed, but most of us would agree that the objectivity of good was a thing we had settled and dismissed with the existence of God. Theology and Absolute Ethics are two famous subjects which we have realized to have no real objects.” (Pg. 246-247)
It is indeed a huge loss to philosophy that Ramsey died so young; but this book will surely prove to any reader that he would have been one of the major figures on the philosophical landscape of the 20th century.
December 23, 2022
A stroke of genius
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews