Destiny is Visible on a Higher Plane of Abstraction: Frank Ramsey’s Psychoanalytic Interest Amid His Behaviorist Legacy

This article reexamines Frank Ramsey's interest in Freudian psychoanalysis, seeking to understand how it makes sense with his behaviorist legacy which prioritized observable behavior rather than human depth. I analyze the private notes the English philosopher, mathematician, and economist took when reading Freud's works, a presentation he delivered to an intellectual society about the concept of sublimation, his imaginary dialogue with John Stuart Mill on Freud, obscure private notes he wrote about behaviorism, and his 1922 and 1926 critiques of John Maynard Keynes's logical view on probability. I argue Ramsey valued psychoanalysis for sketching a higher plane of abstraction that accounted for how past tragedies—rather than present circumstances—determine human reality and action. I show that this deeper insight into psychoanalysis, later de-emphasized by future psychoanalysts in 1920s Vienna and 1950s America, was the one Lou Andreas-Salomé encouraged Freud to develop between 1911 and 1915—who then had an indirect influence on Ramsey, including his views on feminism. Ultimately, I find the logic of Ramsey's critique of Keynes psychoanalytically consistent.