How do we ascribe subjective probability? In decision theory, this question is often addressed by representation theorems, going back to Ramsey (1926), which tell us how to define or measure subjective probability by observable preferences. However, standard representation theorems make strong rationality assumptions, in particular expected utility maximization. How do we ascribe subjective probability to agents which do not satisfy these strong rationality assumptions? I present a representation theorem with weak rationality assumptions which can be used to define or measure (...) subjective probability for partly irrational agents. (shrink)

Genealogies of belief have dominated recent philosophical discussions of genealogical debunking at the expense of genealogies of concepts, which has in turn focused attention on genealogical debunking in an epistemological key. As I argue in this paper, however, this double focus encourages an overly narrow understanding of genealogical debunking. First, not all genealogical debunking can be reduced to the debunking of beliefs—concepts can be debunked without debunking any particular belief, just as beliefs can be debunked without debunking the concepts in (...) terms of which they are articulated. Second, not all genealogical debunking is epistemological debunking. Focusing on concepts rather than beliefs brings distinct forms of genealogical debunking to the fore that cannot be comprehensively captured in terms of epistemological debunking. We thus need a broader understanding of genealogical debunking, which encompasses not just epistemological debunking, but also what I shall refer to as metaphysical debunking and ethical debunking. (shrink)

Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. -/- Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of William James, (...) John Dewey, and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United States. Additionally, Hookway has participated in a number of celebrated exchanges with some of the most high-profile figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy, including Karl-Otto Apel, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and W.V.O. Quine, through which his treatments of a large range of topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language have been developed and promoted. The chapters in this book—which include contributions from several of Hookway’s former students and colleagues—include studies of Hookway’s engagement with the works of Peirce, James, and Dewey, his contributions to virtue epistemology, and his discussions of hope and pragmatist metaphysics. -/- Pragmatic Reason will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, and epistemology. (shrink)

No chance of seeing her for another fortnight and it is 11 days since I saw her. Went solitary walk felt miserable but to some extent staved it off by reflecting on |$\langle$|Continuum Problem|$\rangle$|1The occasion for this review article on the life and accomplishments of Frank Ramsey is the publication in the last eight years of three important books: a biography of Frank Ramsey by his sister, Margaret Paul, a book by Steven Methven on aspects of Ramsey’s philosophy, and the (...) recent biography of Ramsey written by Cheryl Misak. In a companion piece [Mancosu, 2020] I discuss Ramsey’s contacts with logicians in continental Europe and publish previously unpublished letters from Ramsey to Abraham Fraenkel and to Heinrich Behmann.1. INTRODUCTIONFrank Plumpton Ramsey (1903–1930) will be well known to the readers of this journal. His contributions to philosophy, mathematics, and economics have left a lasting legacy. In mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, Ramsey’s solution to the paradoxes by means of a simple theory of types [1926a] and Ramsey’s theorem in combinatorics (both finite and infinite [1930]) are among Ramsey’s most celebrated contributions. Ramsey is a key presence in accounts of Wittgenstein’s, Russell’s, and Moore’s lives and work. It is well known that it was Ramsey who translated the Tractatus into English and wrote what is still considered a very insightful review [1923] of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein mentioned the importance of his conversations with Ramsey in 1929 in Cambridge as having influenced his transition to the views presented in the Philosophical Investigations. Ramsey also contributed, in 1924, to the second edition of Principia Mathematica (see [Linsky, 2011]). While Ramsey’s friendship with Moore does not have an analogous concrete precipitate as the work on the Tractatus or Principia Mathematica, it is evident from the correspondence and other documents that Ramsey’s work in philosophy (truth, propositions, universals, etc.) influenced Moore. Of course, the direction of influence goes also the other way around. Wittgenstein, Russell, and Moore, among others, were essential in shaping Ramsey’s approach to philosophy. (shrink)

This essay traces the evolution of the pragmatist elements in Wiggins's distinctive view of truth and shows its connections to the founder of pragmatism, C.S. Peirce and one of Peirce's greatest successors, F.P. Ramsey. Wiggin's pragmatism, like that of Peirce and Ramsey, is a pragmatism that attempts to arrive at what Wiggins calls ‘a sensible subjectivism’ – an account of truth that respects both the human inventiveness and the objectivity that are each a part of our search for the truth.

At the centenary of Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, we explore the continuing relevance of Knightian uncertainty to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship. There are three challenges facing such assessment. First, RUP is complex and difficult to interpret. The key but neglected element of RUP is that Knight’s account is not solely about risk and uncertainty as states of nature, but about how an agent’s beliefs about uncertain outcomes and confidence in those beliefs guide their choices. Second, (...) RUP is Knight’s only effort in this area. His subsequent career led elsewhere, so he did not engage with subsequent interpretations of this work. Third, much of the current literature emphasizes that decisions must be different under the two states of nature with a consequent misunderstanding of entrepreneurial agency. This paper addresses each challenge in sequence. First, we explicate Knight’s approach and explain why that approach is murky. Second, as a complement to Knight’s interpretation, we examine Frank P. Ramsey’s approach to subjective probabilities to help clarify Knight’s murky approach. What links Knight and Ramsey is a shared pragmatism about entrepreneurial agency under uncertainty that depends upon the beliefs about, and confidence in, their judgments of possible outcomes. This Knight-Ramsey approach does not require actor’s behaviors to be determined by the class of uncertain environment they face. We focus on the response by the entrepreneur to the existence of uncertainty in all its forms. We argue that this reductive account provides a foundation to examine common problems in management, including managerial hubris, the interaction between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and the need for experimentation in advance of new product and venture launches. Third, we critique current literature that favors epistemic purism about the ontology of risk and uncertainty and ignores Knight-Ramsey pragmatism in meeting uncertainty, such as using formal and informal institutions for uncertainty mitigation. Our account locates Frank Knight’s subtleties in entrepreneurial behavior firmly in the literature on entrepreneurial agency a century later. (shrink)

This paper views Bernard Williams through the lens of the pragmatist tradition. The central insight of pragmatism is that philosophy must start with human practice, in contrast to high theory or metaphysics. Williams was one of the twentieth century’s most able proponents of this insight, especially when considering the topics of ethics and the law. Williams never saw himself as a pragmatist, because he took Richard Rorty’s radical relativism to be the exemplar of the position. But I shall suggest that (...) had Williams seen himself as a more objective pragmatist, along the lines of C. S. Peirce, C. I. Lewis, or Frank Ramsey, he might have had the resources to settle vital issues on which he wavered, issues having to do with whether there is anything objective underpinning our deliberations. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey (1903-1930) is usually taken to be sympathetic to the Vienna Circle’s project. I will argue that this is not right. Ramsey was a pragmatist, and he put pragmatist objections to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, objections which also had the Vienna Circle as their target. Ramsey thought the Circle’s position (like Wittgenstein’s) was mistaken in that, instead of starting with human inquiry, it tried to construct the world out of elementary particulars and logic, and resulted in an unacceptable solipsism. This paper (...) traces the trajectory of Ramsey’s pragmatist thought, and its relationship to the early Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a unified account of conditionals inspired by Frank Ramsey. Most contemporary philosophers agree that Ramsey’s account applies to indicative conditionals only. We observe against this orthodoxy that his account covers subjunctive conditionals as well—including counterfactuals. In light of this observation, we argue that Ramsey’s account of conditionals resembles Robert Stalnaker’s possible worlds semantics supplemented by a model of belief. The resemblance suggests to reinterpret the notion of conditional degree of belief in order to overcome a (...) tension in Ramsey’s account. The result of the reinterpretation is a tenable account of conditionals that covers indicative and subjunctive as well as qualitative and probabilistic conditionals. (shrink)

Summary This article presents three hitherto unpublished letters by Frank Plumpton Ramsey on the foundations of mathematics with commentary. One of the letters was sent to Abraham Fraenkel and the other two letters to Heinrich Behmann. The transcription of the letters is preceded by an account that details the extent of Ramsey's known contacts with mathematical logicians on the Continent.

i begin by thanking David Hildebrand, Daniel Brunson, and the program committee for the magnificent job they have done under the very difficult circumstances imposed by the pandemic. I’d also like to thank the program committee for their generous invitation to present this 2021 Founders Lecture.Since this is a Founders Lecture, it seems appropriate to recall that one of the society’s founders, Ralph Sleeper, said on more than one occasion that he would love to have a séance with Frank Ramsey (...) about what he, Ramsey, said to Wittgenstein about pragmatism.Now, thanks to an extraordinarily well-researched intellectual biography of Ramsey, Sleeper’s longed-for séance will not be necessary. Cheryl Misak’s book Frank... (shrink)

In contemporary works on conditionals, the Ramsey test is a procedure for the evaluation of conditional sentences. There are several versions of the test, all inspired by a footnote by the British philosopher and mathematician Frank Ramsey, in his General Propositions and Causality. However, no study on Ramsey's own account of conditionals has been put forth so far. Furthermore, the footnote seems to cover indicative conditionals only, and this has led to the belief that no account of counterfactuals can be (...) found in Ramsey's work. In this paper, I recover Ramsey's account of counterfactuals and show that it is sketched in the footnote too. The result is a well-developed account of counterfactuals that resembles many contemporary ones. But Ramsey uses the same approach also for other types of conditionals, and this casts doubts on the current criteria for the classification of this type of sentences. (shrink)

It has long been known that there exists a relationship between British analytic philosophy and American pragmatism.1 Recently, however, Cheryl Misak gave this story a new twist. Her 2016 book Camb...

Does the biography of a philosopher have any relevance to assessing their philosophy? After considering and rejecting three distinct treatments of this question, a different answer is articulated here. Distinguishing between the content and approach of a philosophical text, this article argues that biography is relevant to assessing the approach of the text in three ways: in its socio-historical context, its philosophical context, and its personal context in the life of the philosopher. Such a strategy offers new ways of comparing (...) very different texts and assessing them in terms of the aims of the philosopher writing them. (shrink)

In philosophy, economics, and law, the idea of voluntary agreements plays a central role. But contractarianism in political philosophy stands on altogether different grounds from enthusi...

This paper aims to renew the “deflationary” interpretation of Ramsey’s theory of truth, with respect to his declared “pragmatist tendency,” which was not completely developed due to his premature death. This aim is not only historical-philosophical, but also exquisitely theoretical, since the mediation of pragmatism allowed Ramsey to achieve an original synthesis among different philosophical instances. In order to show this, I pay attention to the debate between Ramsey and some spokespeople of the leading British philosophical traditions at the beginning (...) of the twentieth century (especially Neo-idealism, Neo-empiricism, and Oxford Realism), through which it will stand out how Ramsey’s logical analysis of the truth predicate was embedded within a wider theoretical context, involving a pragmatic theory of knowledge and even a “general psychological theory.” Indeed, the truth of a belief will be defined in relation to mental factors, in so far as they involve a successful disposition to behave. (shrink)

Hempel never met Ramsey, but he knew his work. In his 1958 The Theoretician’s Dilemma: a study in the logic of theory construction, Hempel introduces the term Ramsey sentence, referring to Ramsey’s attempt in Theories to get rid of theoretical terms in formal accounts of scientific theories. In this paper, I draw the attention to another connection between Ramsey’s and Hempel’s works. Hempel’s Deductive-Nomological (DN) account of scientific explanation resembles very closely Ramsey’s account of a certain type of conditional sentences. (...) In the first part of the paper, by introducing a fictional story, I highlight the similarities and differences between the two. In the last part of the paper, I claim that the most relevant difference between Ramsey and Hempel can be used to offer original solutions to Hempel’s Raven Paradox. Two possibilities are presented, arguing that the second, which requires a reconsideration of the formalisation of laws, is the most promising. (shrink)