Realism and pragmatism

• Published in: Frank Ramsey pp. 27 - 44
• Main Authors: Dokic, Jérôme, Engel, Pascal
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Presses Universitaires de France 2001; Routledge; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Analytical philosophy & Logical Positivism; Philosophy of mathematics; Western philosophy, from c 1900; Reliable Process; Counterfactual Conditionals; Conditional Dispositions; Belief Habits; Overburdening; Atomic Propositions; Ramsey's Principle; Nonlinguistic Behaviour; Inferential Habits; Ramsey Test; Complex Universals; Logisch Philosophische Abhandlung; Inductive Beliefs; Ramsey Sentence; Epistemic Logic; Genuine Laws; Ramsey's Argument; PGC; Indicative Conditionals; Epistemic Theory Of Truth; Ramsey's Conception; Informational Equilibrium; Subject Predicate Distinction; Ramsey's View; Variable Hypotheticals
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203217832-3
• ISBN: 9780415408288; 0415408288; 0415287197; 9780415287197

We have seen how Ramsey drew from his views on subjective probability a pragmatist conception of the justification of inductive beliefs (§1.2). In two short notes, "Reasonable degree of belief" (1928) and "Knowledge" (1929) he also draws the consequences of this conception for an analysis of the concept of knowledge. According to the traditional analysis, taken up by Russell (1910, 1912), knowledge is justified true belief. Russell, anticipating in this Gettier's famous counterexamples, showed that there are cases of justified true beliefs which fail to be knowledge, since one could get such beliefs by accident. 1