In spite of his short life and consequently abbreviated career, Frank P. Ramsey is a major figure in twentieth-century British philosophy. His work ranges from logic to economics, probability and decision theory, epistemology, and metaphysics. He is considered, with Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the main representatives of Cambridge philosophy during the first part of the century, and his work has inspired many contemporary philosophers in the analytic tradition.

Frank Plumpton Ramsey was born in Cambridge on 22 February 1903 to Arthur Stanley Ramsey, a mathematician and president of Magdalene College of the University of Cambridge, and Agnes Mary Ramsey, née Wilson. Ramsey's brother, Michael, went on to become archbishop of Canterbury. Ramsey was educated at Winchester, one of England's leading public schools, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he became acquainted in 1921 with the economist John Maynard Keynes, who became his...