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The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey

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Sahlin(S)does an excellent job in assessing the positive aspects of Ramsey's substantial contributions to mathematics,philosophy,economics,logic,probability ,induction,pragmatism,decision theory,and the subjectivist approach to probability.Unfortunately,S does not do a very good job of assessing the deficiency that exists in some areas of Ramsey's work.A prime example would be Ramsey's two reviews of J M Keynes's 1921 book ,titled A Treatise on Probability.Ramsey wrote reviews in 1922 and 1926.Both of these reviews are based on a reading of the first four chapters of Keynes's book plus 3-4 pages,apparently selected by Ramsey at random ,from Parts II-V of the rest of Keynes's book.Ramsey made a major blunder in his interpretation of Keynes's definitions of nonnumerical and nonmeasurable in chapter III of the TP(1921).Keynes defined these terms to mean not by a single numeral or number and not by a single numerical relation,respectively.Instead,Keynes argued that it generally took TWO numbers to measure a probability,an upper bound and a lower bound.The exception was the case of positive symmetrical evidence.In this case a decision maker could resort to Keynes's superior version of the principle of nonsufficient reason,the principle of indifference,to calculate exact,precise,definite point estimate using a single numeral or number.Ramsey instead argued that Keynes meant that nonnumerical meant that no numbers could in general be used to specify a probability estimate.Thus, Ramsey talks about Keynes's "mysterious"nonnumerical probabilities and "mysterious"degrees of belief,which,according to Ramsey are also "nonnumerical".Ramsey(and S)failed to take Keynes's chapter III ,page 37 warning to the reader that he should wait until after he has finished Part II of the TP BEFORE HE DRAWS ANY CONCLUSIONS FROM chapter III.Keynes's technical discussions ,in chapters 15 and 17 of the TP on using Boole's approach to establish upper and lower bounds to estimate probabilities, were not read by Ramsey(orS).The result has been that philosophers,economists ,psychologists ,etc.have,for the last 75-80 years,based their assessment of Keynes's TP on reviews that Bertrand Russell correctly,and very generously,characterised as having the LEAST value of any of Ramsey's work.

a great book!! read it and you will see!! gay-ron-teed!!! no lie. just do it!!! you have nothing to lose!!!! take it everywhere and folks will think you are so sophisticated and smart. who knows, maybe you are!!! at least thumb through it. there is good in it. it will make you a better person if that is important to you. thanks.