Frank P. Ramsey

Quotes

• “The first problem I propose to tackle is this: how much of its income should a nation save? To answer this a simple rule is obtained valid under conditions of surprising generality; the rule, which will be further elucidated later, runs as follows. The rate of saving multiplied by the marginal utility of money should always be equal to the amount by which the total net rate of enjoyment of utility falls short of the maximum possible rate of enjoyment.”
• “It is worth pausing for a moment to consider how far our conclusions are affected by considerations which our simplifying assumptions have forced us to neglect.”
• “Philosophy must be of some use and we must take it seriously; it must clear our thoughts and so our actions. Or else it is a disposition that we have to check, and an inquiry to see that this is so; i.e. the chief proposition of philosophy is that philosophy is nonsense. And again we must then take seriously that it is nonsense, and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense!”
• “[W]e shall be concerned with the general nature of pure mathematics, and how it is distinguished from other sciences. Here there are... two distinct categories of things of which an account must be given—the ideas or concepts of mathematics, and the propositions of mathematics. ...the great majority of writers on the subject have concentrated their attention on the explanation of one or the other... and erroneously supposed that a satisfactory explanation of the other would immediately follow.”
• “The formalists neglected the content altogether and made mathematics meaningless, the logicians neglected the form and made mathematics consist of any true generalizations; only by taking account of both sides and regarding it as composed of tautologous generalizations can we obtain an adequate theory.”
• “Tautologies and contradictions are not real propositions, but degenerate cases. ...Clearly, by negating a contradiction we get a tautology, and by negating a tautology a contradiction. ...A genuine proposition asserts something about reality, and it is true if reality is as it is asserted to be. But a tautology is a symbol constructed so as to say nothing whatever about reality, but to express total ignorance by agreeing with every possibility.”

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Key facts

Born

Frank Plumpton Ramsey , ( 1903-02-22 ) 22 February 1903, Cambridge , Cambridgeshire , England

Died

19 January 1930 (1930-01-19) (aged 26), Southwark , London , England

Spouse

Lettice Ramsey ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1925 ) ​

Education

Trinity College, Cambridge ( BA , 1923)

Academic advisor

John Maynard Keynes

Era

20th-century philosophy

Region

Western philosophy

School

Analytic philosophy

Institutions

King's College, Cambridge

Doctoral students

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Main interests

Combinatorics Philosophy of mathematics Logic Metaphysics Epistemology

Notable ideas

Theory of simple types Redundancy theory of truth Ramsey sentences Ramsey–Lewis method Ramsey theory Ramsey problem Ramsey–Dvoretzky–Milman phenomenon Ramsey test Ramsey's theorem Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model Keynes–Ramsey rule Bernays–Schönfinkel–Ramsey class

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Wikidata facts

Image

30. Frank Ramsey.jpg

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