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Ramsey, Frank Plumpton, 1903-1930 (philosopher and mathematician)

 Person

Biography

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.

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:

 Series

Letter from Frank Plumpton Ramsey to Charles K. Ogden (1889-1957), 1923 (Circa)

 Series
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.8812/124
Scope and Contents

Postcard from Puchberg am Schneeberg, Austria, where Ramsay went to visit Wittgenstein and to work on translation of 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'; 'LW explains his book to me from 2-7 every day. It is most illuminating... we seem to get on at about a page an hour... he says that his mind is no longer flexible and he can never write another book'; he teaches in a village school, is very poor, and 'regarded by most of his colleagues as a little mad.'

Dates: 1923 (Circa)
Conditions Governing Access: From the Fonds: Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
 File

Partial photograph album [compiled by Carola or Margery Seward], 1926

 File
Reference Code: GBR/0269/DCPP/SEW/4/2/7
Scope and Contents Only partially copied (without holiday photos and non-Downing groups). Includes: Lord Robert Cecil and Canon Raven with A. C. Seward at Downing; Margery at the pianola in the Drawing Room in the Master's Lodge; Mary Hayward and Miss Smuts; Dockerill in an Austin car in front of the Master's Lodge at Downing; Huon and Camilla Walton [Dorothy and John's children]; Helen and Ladybird Haslam; Dorothy Sampson [Phyllis and Michael's daughter]; Margery ('dressed for Princess Mary') and Carola in...
Dates: 1926
Conditions Governing Access: From the Fonds: Generally open.

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