Ramsey on Conditionals

The aim of this chapter is to recover Ramsey’s view on conditionals. The chapter first examines Ramsey’s famous footnote, the inspiration of many Ramsey tests in the literature on conditionals. First, I focus on indicative conditionals and Ramsey’s definition of conditional probability. I claim that, contrary to what is today usually believed, conditional probability cannot express, in Ramsey, the meaning of all types of indicative conditionals. Then, I discuss Ramsey’s account of counterfactuals. By taking into account an overlooked note by Ramsey on the meaning of hypothetical propositions, I show that Ramsey had a well-developed account of counterfactuals. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion of Ramsey’s perspective on the classification of conditional sentences.