Ramsey's Ramsey-sentences

Stathis Psillos

pp. 147-170

in: Stathis Psillos, Knowing the structure of nature, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Abstract

Ramsey's posthumously published Theories has become one of the classics of the twentieth century philosophy of science. The paper was written in 1929 and was first published in 1931, in a collection of Ramsey's papers edited by Richard Braithwaite. Theories was mostly ignored until the 1950s, though Ramsey's reputation was growing fast, especially in relation to his work in the foundations of mathematics. Braithwaite made some use of it in his Scientific Explanation, which appeared in 1953. It was Hempel's The Theoretician's Dilemma, published in 1958, which paid Ramsey's paper its philosophical dues. Hempel coined the now famous expression "Ramsey-sentence".

Cited authors

Ramsey Frank P