The Principal Principle and Theories of Chance: Another Bug?

Philosophy of Science 78 (5):854-863 (2011)
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Abstract

Objective chance, or the “big bad bug” of David Lewis's account of Humean Supervenience forces, as is well known, is a modification of the Principal Principle. Here, I argue that standard assumptions regarding conditional probabilities entail several puzzling consequences for Lewis's New Principle, namely, an apparent requirement to account for the chance of a theory of chance. These problems, I argue, cannot be adequately answered within the received framework, and so I suggest that an interpretation of conditional probabilities in terms of Alan Hájek's recent work might go some distance toward their resolution.

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References found in this work

Humean Supervenience Debugged.David Lewis - 1994 - Mind 103 (412):473--490.
What conditional probability could not be.Alan Hájek - 2003 - Synthese 137 (3):273--323.
Correcting the guide to objective chance.Ned Hall - 1994 - Mind 103 (412):505-518.
Philosophical Papers.Graeme Forbes & David Lewis - 1985 - Philosophical Review 94 (1):108.

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