Frank Ramsey and the Realistic Spirit

278 Pages·2015·4.291 MB·English

by  S. J. Methven (auth.)

History of Analytic Philosophy
Series Editor: Michael Beaney, University of York, UK
Titles include:
Stewart Candlish
THE RUSSELL/BRADLEY DISPUTE AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR
TWENTIETH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
Siobhan Chapman
SUSAN STEBBING AND THE LANGUAGE OF COMMON SENSE
Annalisa Coliva
MOORE AND WITTGENSTEIN
Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense
Giuseppina D’Oro and Constantine Sandis (editors)
REASONS AND CAUSES
Causalism and Non-Causalism in the Philosophy of Action
George Duke
DUMMETT ON ABSTRACT OBJECTS
Mauro Engelmann
WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENT
Phenomenology, Grammar, Method, and the Anthropological View
Sébastien Gandon
RUSSELL’S UNKNOWN LOGICISM
A Study in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics
Jolen Gallagher
RUSSELL’S PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL ANALYSIS: 1898–1905
Anssi Korhonen
LOGIC AS UNIVERSAL SCIENCE
Russell’s Early Logicism and Its Philosophical Context
Gregory Landini
FREGE’S NOTATIONS
What They Are and What They Mean
Sandra Lapointe
BOLZANO’S THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY
An Introduction
Sandra Lapointe and Clinton Tolley (editors and translators)
THE NEW ANTI-KANT
Omar W. Nasim
BERTRAND RUSSELL AND THE EDWARDIAN PHILOSOPHERS
Constructing the World
Ulrich Pardey
FREGE ON ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE TRUTH
Douglas Patterson
ALFRED TARSKIPHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
Erich Reck (e ditorr)
THE HISTORIC TURN IN ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Graham Stevens
THE THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS
Mark Textor (e ditorr)
JUDGEMENT AND TRUTH IN EARLY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND
PHENOMENOLOGY
Maria van der Schaar
G.F. STOUT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Nuno Venturinha (editorr)
WITTGENSTEIN AFTER HIS NACHLASS
Pierre Wagner (e ditorr)
CARNAP’S LOGICAL SYNTAX OF LANGUAGE
Pierre Wagner (e ditorr)
CARNAP’S IDEAL OF EXPLICATION AND NATURALISM
Forthcoming:
Rosalind Carey
RUSSELL ON MEANING
The Emergence of Scientific Philosophy from the 1920s to the 1940s
Consuelo Preti
THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS OF ETHICS
The Early Philosophical Development of G. E. Moore
History of Analytic Philosophy
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Frank Ramsey and the
Realistic Spirit
S. J. Methven
Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK
© S. J. Methven 2015
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ISBN 978-1-349-56123-0 ISBN 978-1-137-35108-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137351081
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
S. J. Methven, 1978–
Frank Ramsey and the realistic spirit / Steven Methven, Worcester
College, University of Oxford, UK.
pages cm.—(History of analytic philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Ramsey, Frank Plumpton, 1903–1930. I. Title.
B1649.R254M48 2015
92—dc23 2015018588
For Romilly

Contents
Seriors Editors’ Foreword x
Michael Beaney
Acknowledgements xiii
List of Abbreviations x v
Introduction 1
Part I The Realistic Spirit
1 The Realistic Spirit 15
1.1 Realism and the realistic 17
1.2 Playing not-bridge 23
1.2.1 Three contrasts 24
1.2.2 Playing and contravention 26
1.2.3 The comfort of pretence 31
1.2.4 Parsimony and pretending 35
2 Empiricism, Solipsism and the Realistic 39
2.1 Empiricism and the Realistic 39
2.1.1 Berkeley, Russell and the language of God 40
2.1.2 The Given 44
2.2 Solipsism and the Realistic 49
3 Pragmatism and the Realistic 53
3.1 Probabilityy 54
3.1.1 Degrees of belieff 55
3.1.2 Peirce and probabilityy 58
3.1.3 Rationality, enquiry and reasonableness 61
3.2 Truth 66
3.2.1 On truth 66
3.2.2 Truth and enquiryy 69
3.3 Ramsey as pragmatist 72
Part II Meaning
4 Ramsey and Wittgenstein: First Encounters 77
4.1 Pictures 78
vii
viii Contents
4.1.1 Representation and sense 80
4.1.2 Pictorial and logical form 85
4.2 Propositions 98
4.2.1 Type and token 98
4.2.2 Truth and meaning 105
5 The Mystical 116
5.1 Ramsey and the mystical 116
5.1.1 Internal properties 117
5.1.2 Making clear 119
5.2 Ramsey and nonsense 120
5.2.1 Existential statements 121
5.2.2 Identity statements 121
5.2.3 Logical and semantic properties 123
5.2.4 Mathematical statements 124
5.2.5 Ramsey and semantics 128
6 Truth and Meaning 132
6.1 Facts and judgement 135
6.2 Judgement 142
6.2.1 Chicken-Beliefs 142
6.2.2 Beliefs, private states and representation 145
6.3 Belief and representation 147
6.3.1 Names, objects and antirealism 147
6.3.2 Mental signs 150
6.3.3 Belief and causation 151
6.3.4 Belief, language and forms of life 156
6.4 Objections 159
6.4.1 Judging nonsense 159
6.4.2 What is squiggle? 161
6.4.3 Realism and the realistic 164
Part III Mathematics
7 The Foundations of Mathematics 171
7.1 Tractarian logicism 173
7.2 Identity in the T ractatus 176
7.2.1 Wittgenstein on identityy 176
7.2.2 The Tractarian convention 180
7.3 Ramsey’s definition of ‘=’ 183
7.3.1 The problem of essential classes 183
7.3.2 Identity in Principia 184
Contents ix
7.3.3 Propositional functions in extension 187
7.3.4 What could a PFE be? 190
8 L ogical Revolt 198
8.1 Ramsey and Hilbert 199
8.1.1 Generalisation 200
8.1.2 The(cid:2)-operator 203
8.2 The E ntscheidungsproblem 207
8.2.1 Decidability and the logic of the Tractatus 209
Part IV Influence
9 Generality, Rules and Normativityy 217
9.1 Generalityy 217
9.1.1 Quantification in the Tractatus 218
9.1.2 Ramsey’s criticisms 220
9.1.3 Ramsey and the infinite 223
9.1.4 Wittgenstein and the infinite 225
9.2 Rules and normativityy 230
9.2.1 Philosophical Investigations §81 230
9.2.1 Rules and games 232
9.2.3 Normativityy 235
Notes 238
References 255
Index 265