Frank Plumpton Ramsey: articles and notes

Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-30), philosopher and mathematician, was born in Cambridge on 22 February 1903. His father Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867-1954) was fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he later became President, and his mother was Agnes Mary Wilson (1875-1927). His brother Michael was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1961. Educated at Winchester College (1915-20) and Trinity College, Cambridge (1920-23), where he read mathematics, Frank Ramsey became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1924. From 1926 until his death he was a university lecturer in mathematics.

In his short life Ramsey made significant contributions to philosophy, logic, economics and mathematics. As a philosopher he was influenced by Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Although a friend of John Maynard Keynes, he nevertheless attacked his A treatise on probability so convincingly that Keynes abandoned its principal concept. Ramsey's papers include 'Universals' (1925), 'Facts and propositions' (1927), 'Universals of law and of fact' (1928), 'General propositions and causality' (1929), 'Theories' (1929), and 'Knowledge' (1929). Much of Ramsey's work was posthumously published in F. P. Ramsey, 'The foundations of mathematics and other logical essays', edited by R. B. Braithwaite, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1931 [Ramsey 1931]. Other papers were published in F. P. Ramsey, 'Philosophical papers', edited by D. H. Mellor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [Ramsey 1990].

Ramsey died in Guy's Hospital, London, on 19 January 1930, of complications arising from jaundice and hepatitis. Recognition of the importance of his thought was achieved only slowly, but many of his ideas are now regarded as seminal in a number of fields of philosophy, mathematics and economics.

Two articles and three notes by Frank Plumpton Ramsey

The manuscripts were donated to Cambridge University, to be housed in the University Library, by Professor D. H. Mellor in January 2008

Please cite as Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Frank Plumpton Ramsey: articles and notes, MS Add.9781

A collection of Ramsey's manuscripts, including notes, lectures, unfinished writings, amounting to 120 items and approximately 1,200 holograph items, is held as part of the Archives of Scientific Philosophy in the Twentieth Century in the Hillman Library of the University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A.; see F. P. Ramsey, 'On truth: original manuscript materials (1927-1929) from the Ramsey Collection at the University of Pittsburgh', edited by Nicholas Rescher and Ulrich Majer, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991. A postcard from Ramsey to C. K. Ogden, about Wittgenstein, 1923, is at CUL MS Add. 8812/124. Letters from Ramsey to G. E. Moore, 1924-9, are at CUL MS Add. 8330/8R/3/1-5

A hard-copy finding aid is available for consultation in the Manuscripts Reading Room

This catalogue record was compiled by John Wells in March 2008, drawing in part on Professor Mellor's descriptions of the manuscripts