Frank Ramsey Quotes
Frank Plumpton Ramsey was a British mathematician, logician, and philosopher of extraordinary precocity who, in a career cut short by his death at twenty-six, made foundational contributions to mathematical logic, the philosophy of probability, the philosophy of language, and economics. His paper Truth and Probability set out the first comprehensive subjectivist theory of probability and a pragmatist account of belief, while his work on the foundations of mathematics and on Wittgenstein's Tractatus shaped Cambridge analytic philosophy in his lifetime. The quotes below are attributed to Frank Ramsey, organized by topic.
Browse Frank Ramsey by topic
Frank Ramsey on Happiness
-
“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.”
Wikiquote
Frank Ramsey on Knowledge
-
Attributed to Frank Ramsey:
“We must always be brought back to the experiments and the data.”
-
Attributed to Frank Ramsey:
“Philosophy is the clarification of thought, not the discovery of new facts.”
-
“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.”
A Mathematical Theory of Saving", The Economic Journal , Vol. 38, No. 152 (Dec., 1928) -
“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”
A Mathematical Theory of Saving", The Economic Journal , Vol. 38, No. 152 (Dec., 1928) -
“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!”
Philosophy" (1929) as quoted by Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (1990) -
“Philosophy" (1929) as quoted by Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (1990)”
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! -
“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.”
Wikiquote
Frank Ramsey on Nature
-
“[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.”
Footnote: In the future by 'mathematics' will always be meant 'pure mathematics'.
Frank Ramsey on Time
-
“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.”
A Mathematical Theory of Saving", The Economic Journal , Vol. 38, No. 152 (Dec., 1928) -
“Footnote: In the future by 'mathematics' will always be meant 'pure mathematics'.”
[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.
Frank Ramsey on Truth
-
Attributed to Frank Ramsey:
“Beliefs are guides to action; their truth is their reliability.”
-
Attributed to Frank Ramsey:
“What we cannot say at all, we cannot say either; nor can we whistle it.”
-
Attributed to Frank Ramsey:
“Truth is the satisfaction of the conditions of an assertion.”