Date
Fri December 9th 2016, 3:15pm
Location
Building 90, room 92Q
Ramsey's 1929 Pragmatism
The received view is that Frank Ramsey was signed up to the logical analyst program of the early Russell and the early Wittgenstein. I argue that this is a mistaken reading of Ramsey. He did not identify a primary language comprised of observation and logic and then go on to argue that open generalisations and lawlike statements can be given a different, pragmatist, treatment. Rather, he starts from the pragmatist account of belief as a habit of behaviour and comes to a global pragmatist account of belief and its evaluation. I will suggest that this is a, or perhaps even the, promising pragmatist position. I will also suggest that Ramsey imparted it to Wittgenstein before his death in 1930, although he wouldn't have been happy with what Wittgenstein then did with it.
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philosophy [at] stanford.edu
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