2024-09-24
17 分钟The Cambridge philosopher Frank Ramsey died aged 26, but in a short brilliant life he made significant contributions to philosphy and economics. Here in the Bio Bites strand of Philosophy Bites David Edmonds discusses Ramsey's life and thought with his biographer Cheryl Misak.
This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
Philosophy Bytes is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
Frank Ramsay was a remarkable Cambridge philosopher who died very young.
He was only 26.
In his short life, he produced a slew of brilliant ideas, many of which are still discussed in this interview.
In the bio bytes thread of philosophy bytes, Cheryl Misak, author of Ramsay's biography, which she, subtitled A Sheer Excess of powers, explores the relationship between his life and thought.
Cheryl Misak, welcome to philosophy bites.
My pleasure.
We're talking today about Frank Ramsay.
You've been on philosophy bites before, also talking about Frank Ramsay.
But in particular today, we're going to be talking about how his life affected his philosophy.
Let's start by summarizing who he was, when he lived, how important he was.
Ramsay was, as Paul Samuelson, the economist, once said, a genius by any test of genius.
So he died at the age of 26 in 1930.
He was a Cambridge philosopher, economist, and mathematician who really did unbelievable things in this very short life.
There's a branch of combinatoric mathematics named after him, Ramsey theory.
There are two sub branches of economics that he really optimal taxation theory and optimal savings theory.
And in philosophy, we also have just a ton of things named after him.
Ramsay sentences Ramsay conditionalization.