Frank Ramsey and the Realistic Spirit

Abstract

This book attempts to explicate and expand upon Frank Ramsey's notion of the realistic spirit. In so doing, it provides a systematic reading of his work, and demonstrates the extent of Ramsey's genius as evinced by both his responses to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , and the impact he had on Wittgenstein's later philosophical insights.-- Machine generated contents note: pt. I The Realistic Spirit -- 1. The Realistic Spirit -- 1.1. Realism and the realistic -- 1.2. Playing not-bridge -- 1.2.1. Three contrasts -- 1.2.2. Playing and contravention -- 1.2.3. The comfort of pretence -- 1.2.4. Parsimony and pretending -- 2. Empiricism, Solipsism and the Realistic -- 2.1. Empiricism and the Realistic -- 2.1.1. Berkeley, Russell and the language of God -- 2.1.2. The Given -- 2.2. Solipsism and the Realistic -- 3. Pragmatism and the Realistic -- 3.1. Probability -- 3.1.1. Degrees of belief -- 3.1.2. Peirce and probability -- 3.1.3. Rationality, enquiry and reasonableness -- 3.2. Truth -- 3.2.1. On truth -- 3.2.2. Truth and enquiry -- 3.3. Ramsey as pragmatist -- pt. II Meaning -- 4. Ramsey and Wittgenstein: First Encounters -- 4.1. Pictures -- 4.1.1. Representation and sense -- 4.1.2. Pictorial and logical form -- 4.2. Propositions -- 4.2.1. Type and token -- 4.2.2. Truth and meaning -- 5. The Mystical -- 5.1. Ramsey and the mystical -- 5.1.1. Internal properties -- 5.1.2. Making clear -- 5.2. Ramsey and nonsense -- 5.2.1. Existential statements -- 5.2.2. Identity statements -- 5.2.3. Logical and semantic properties -- 5.2.4. Mathematical statements -- 5.2.5. Ramsey and semantics -- 6. Truth and Meaning -- 6.1. Facts and judgement -- 6.2. Judgement -- 6.2.1. Chicken-Beliefs -- 6.2.2. Beliefs, private states and representation -- 6.3. Belief and representation -- 6.3.1. Names, objects and antirealism -- 6.3.2. Mental signs -- 6.3.3. Belief and causation -- 6.3.4. Belief, language and forms of life -- 6.4. Objections -- 6.4.1. Judging nonsense -- 6.4.2. What is squiggle-- 6.4.3. Realism and the realistic -- pt. III Mathematics -- 7. The Foundations of Mathematics -- 7.1. Tractarian logicism -- 7.2. Identity in the Tractatus -- 7.2.1. Wittgenstein on identity -- 7.2.2. The Tractarian convention -- 7.3. Ramsey's definition of `=' -- 7.3.1. The problem of essential classes -- 7.3.2. Identity in Principia -- 7.3.3. Propositional functions in extension -- 7.3.4. What could a PFE be-- 8. Logical Revolt -- 8.1. Ramsey and Hilbert -- 8.1.1. Generalisation -- 8.1.2. The τ-operator -- 8.2. The Entscheidungsproblem -- 8.2.1. Decidability and the logic of the Tractatus -- pt. IV Influence -- 9. Generality, Rules and Normativity -- 9.1. Generality -- 9.1.1. Quantification in the Tractatus -- 9.1.2. Ramsey's criticisms -- 9.1.3. Ramsey and the infinite -- 9.1.4. Wittgenstein and the infinite -- 9.2. Rules and normativity -- 9.2.1. Philosophical Investigations [§]81 -- 9.2.1. Rules and games -- 9.2.3. Normativity.