Table Of ContentMIND ASSOCIATION OCCASIONAL SERIES
RAMSEY’S LEGACY
MIND ASSOCIATION OCCASIONAL SERIES
This series consists of occasional volumes of original papers on
predefined themes. The Mind Association nominates an editor or
editors for each collection, and may cooperate with other bodies
in promoting conferences or other scholarly activities in
connection with the preparation of particular volumes.
Publications Officer: M. A. Stewart
Secretary: B. W. Hooker
Also published in the series:
Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes
Edited by G. A. J. Rogers and A. Ryan
Reality, Representation, and Projection
Edited by J. Haldane and C. Wright
Machines and Thought
The Legacy of Alan Turing
Edited by P. J. R. Millican and A. Clark
Connectionism, Concepts, and Folk Psychology
The Legacy of Alan Turing, Volume II
Edited by A. Clark and P. J. R. Millican
Appearance versus Reality
New Essays on the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley
Edited by Guy Stock
Knowing Our Own Minds
Edited by Crispin Wright, Barry C. Smith,
and Cynthia Macdonald
Transcendental Arguments
Problems and Prospects
Edited by Robert Stern
Reason and Nature
Essays in the Theory of Rationality
Edited by José Luis Bermúdez
and Alan Millar
Leviathan After 350 Years
Edited by Tom Sorell and Luc Foisneau
Ramsey’s Legacy
Edited by
HALLVARD LILLEHAMMER and D. H. MELLOR
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ISBN 0–19–927955–1 978–0–19–927955–5
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PREFACE
This volume contains revised versions of ten of the thirteen original papers
given and discussed at the Frank Ramsey Centenary Conference, held in
Newnham College, Cambridge, from 30 June to 2 July 2003. This conf-
erence, organised by the editors, was the first of three conferences held to
commemorate the centenary year of Ramsey’s birth. (The other two were
held later in the year in Paris and Vienna.) The Cambridge conference was
generously supported by the Mind Association, the Analysis Trust, the
Aristotelian Society, the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, and
the Faculty of Philosophy, and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social
Sciences and Humanities, of the University of Cambridge. We are grateful to
all these bodies, and especially to the contributors, and everyone who
attended and helped us to organise the conference, who made it, we think,
not unworthy of its subject.
H.L.
D.H.M.
Cambridge
February 2005
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CONTENTS
Notes on the Contributors ix
Introduction 1
HALLVARD LILLEHAMMER
Ramsey’s Principle Resituated 8
JÉRÔME DOKIC & PASCAL ENGEL
Success Semantics 22
SIMON BLACKBURN
Ramsey’s Legacies on Conditionals and Truth 37
DOROTHY EDGINGTON
What is Squiggle? Ramsey on Wittgenstein’s Theory of Judgement 53
PETER M. SULLIVAN
Ramsey’s Transcendental Argument 71
MICHAEL POTTER
Ramsey on Universals 83
FRASER MACBRIDE
Empiricism and Ramsey’s Account of Theories 105
PIERRE CRUSE
Ramsey Sentences and Avoiding the Sui Generis 123
FRANK JACKSON
What Does Subjective Decision Theory Tell Us? 137
D. H. MELLOR
Three Conceptions of Intergenerational Justice 149
PARTHA DASGUPTA
References 170
Index 178
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NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
SIMON BLACKBURN is the Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include
Spreading the Word, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Ruling Passions, and
Think, and he has contributed widely to issues in the philosophy of
language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
PIERRE CRUSE currently lectures in philosophy at King’s College London.
He is co-editor (with Dylan Evans) of Emotion, Evolution and Rationality.
SIR PARTHA DASGUPTA is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the
University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College, the British
Academy, and the Royal Society. His publications include Economic Theory
and Exhaustible Resources (with G. M. Heal), The Control of Resources, An Inquiry
into Well-Being and Destitution, and Human Well-Being and the Natural
Environment.
JÉRÔME DOKIC is Directeur d’Études at the École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales, and a member of the Institut Jean-Nicod in Paris. He is
the author of The Philosophy of Sound (with Roberto Casati), L’Esprit en
mouvement, Qu’est-ce que la perception?, and Frank Ramsey. Truth and Success (with
Pascal Engel).
DOROTHY EDGINGTON is Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy
at the University of Oxford, and was previously Professor of Philosophy at
Birkbeck College, University of London. She is best known for her work on
conditionals, including a long survey article, ‘On Conditionals’, in Mind
(1995).
PASCAL ENGEL is Professor of Philosophy at the Université Paris–
Sorbonne, and a member of the Institut Jean-Nicod. He is the author of The
Norm of Truth, Davidson et la philosophie du langage, Philosophie et psychologie, Truth,
and Frank Ramsey. Truth and Success (with Jérôme Dokic).
FRANK JACKSON is Director and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at
the Research School of Social Sciences, the Australian National University.
He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and his books include
Conditionals, Perception, and From Metaphysics to Ethics.
HALLVARD LILLEHAMMER is a University Lecturer in the Faculty of
Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of King’s College.
He is co-editor (with Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra) of Real Metaphysics.
