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Ideas of Frank P. Ramsey, by Text

[British, 1903 - 1930, Cambridge University. Exceptional philosopher who died very young]

1925 The Foundations of Mathematics
§1 p.165 Formalism is hopeless, because it focuses on propositions and ignores concepts
§1 p.168 Formalists neglect content, but the logicists have focused on generalizations, and neglected form
§1 p.179 Either 'a = b' vacuously names the same thing, or absurdly names different things
§2 p.191 Reducibility: to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function
§5 p.222 Infinity: there is an infinity of distinguishable individuals
p.171 p.26 Contradictions are either purely logical or mathematical, or they involved thought and language
p.202 p.456 I just confront the evidence, and let it act on me
p.258 p.431 A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process
1925 Universals
p.12 p.12 Obviously 'Socrates is wise' and 'Socrates has wisdom' express the same fact
p.13 p.13 The distinction between particulars and universals is a mistake made because of language
p.8 p.8 We could make universals collections of particulars, or particulars collections of their qualities
1926 Truth and Probability
p.32 Ramsey gave axioms for an uncertain agent to decide their preferences [Davidson]
p.396 'If' is the same as 'given that', so the degrees of belief should conform to probability theory [Ramsey]
1927 Facts and Propositions
p.16 "It is true that x" means no more than x
p.51 p.102 Sentence meaning is given by the actions to which it would lead
1928 Law and Causality
p.74 Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Read]
p.469 Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier
§A p.143 All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature
§B p.150 Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system
B 155 n p.155 Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge
1928 works
p.31 The 'simple theory of types' distinguishes levels among properties [Grayling]
p.259 Beliefs are maps by which we steer
1929 Knowledge
p.176 Belief is knowledge if it is true, certain, and obtained by a reliable process