This collection of essays recognizes the great variety and wide ranging scope in Ramsey's thought and published work.It commemorates Ramsey's birth in 1903.The essays ,in general,cover Ramsey's contributions while at the same time connecting him to other famous philosophers and thinkers like Keynes,Russell,and Wittgenstein.Unfortunately,the entire book is marred by the failure of any of the authors to correct the error filled assessments made by Ramsey,in 1922 in a book review in The Cambridge Magazine and in 1926 ,in the essay titled "Truth and Probability",of J M Keynes's path breaking work of 1921,A Treatise on Probability.Mellor's contribution,like every other contribution made by him to this particular subject,completely ignores the fact that Ramsey's assessment of Keynes's work is mainly based on Ramsey's misinterpretation of Keynes's use of the term "nonnumerical" in chapter 3 of Keynes's book to mean using no numbers in the measurement and estimation of probabilities.Keynes's entire approach to measurement was clearly presented in chapters 15 and 17 of the TP after the introduction in chapter 3.Ramsey never read these chapters.Neither did Mellor or any other economist,philosopher,or psychologist in the 20th century .The other problem with Mellor's essay is that it fails to recognize the very limited range of application of Ramsey's approach.A necessary condition for the application of Ramsey's approach is that all estimates of probability be unique,precise,single number answers so that the addition and multiplication laws can be applied.Keynes's systematic approach incorporates Ramsey's approach as a special case of his far more general theory of probability that also includes interval estimates and rank orderings,as well as numerical probabilities in some cases.Mellor,like Ramsey,equates probability with mathematical probability alone.Such an approach can be applied only in those areas of physical and life science,like genetics and heredity,where the information set is complete,homogeneous, and fixed over time.
