A clear mind and a gurgling laugh
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A clear mind and a gurgling laugh Cheryl Misak, Frank Ramsey: A sheer excess of powers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, 544 pp, £25 HB Caterina Sisti1 Accepted: 2 November 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
This is the first full biography of the Cambridge philosopher, mathematician and economist Frank P. Ramsey. Although Frank Ramsey is today recognized as one of the greatest intellects of the twentieth century, no full account of his life and work had been provided until Misak’s book. Misak structures the book chronologically according to Ramsey’s education, intellectual growth and academic achievements. Along with biographical information, Misak explains to us the milestones of Ramsey’s thought, with the aid of short insights, “guest boxes,” by prominent scholars in the many fields touched by Ramsey’s work. For this reason, the book is particularly suitable for those who have familiarity with philosophical, mathematical and economical issues. The biography helps us to understand Ramsey’s milieu, with a particular focus on the members of his family, his friends and the Cambridge intellectual environment. Misak collected a great number of notes, letters and records from Ramsey’s childhood until his last days, recovering new material that uncovers unknown aspects of Ramsey’s life and personality, such as the interaction with his students, his relationship with the members of the Bloomsbury group and his personal life experiences and private thoughts. The biography is divided into three sections: Boyhood, The Cambridge Man and An Astonishing Half Decade. The first part, Boyhood, reconstructs Ramsey’s early life, from his birth to the beginning of his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. Misak first introduces the Ramsey family, including his parents. Arthur Ramsey was a Fellow and President of Magdalene College when Frank was born. He was the first of the Ramseys to attend university, not a great mathematician, but good at writing textbooks and at carrying out administrative tasks. Agnes Wilson, Arthur’s wife and Frank’s mother, was an educated and progressive woman. She was left-oriented and an activist for women’s right. She read history at St. Hugh’s College in Oxford and taught at a high school in London. Frank Ramsey was born * Caterina Sisti [email protected]; [email protected] 1
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on February 22, 1903, in Cambridge, the eldest son of Agnes and Arthur. From a very early age, he was a sports lover and a mathematical talent. These two passions accompanied him at boarding school and, later, at Winchester College. Frank Ramsey entered Cambridge University in 1920 as a mathematics undergraduate. In the second section, The Cambridge Man, we immediately encounter those who had the major impact on Ramsey’s intellectual development: Keynes, Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein. Notably, no mathematician occupied an important position in Ramsey’s growth. In this section, Misak follows Ramsey from his first year as a studen
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