Physical probabilities

Synthese 73 (2):329 - 359 (1987)
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Abstract

A conception of probability as an irreducible feature of the physical world is outlined. Propensity analyses of probability are examined and rejected as both formally and conceptually inadequate. It is argued that probability is a non-dispositional property of trial-types; probabilities are attributed to outcomes as event-types. Brier's Rule in an objectivist guise is used to forge a connection between physical and subjective probabilities. In the light of this connection there are grounds for supposing physical probability to obey some standard set of axioms. However, there is no a priori reason why this should be the case.

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Author's Profile

Peter Milne
University of Stirling

References found in this work

Universals and scientific realism.David Malet Armstrong - 1978 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Why propensities cannot be probabilities.Paul Humphreys - 1985 - Philosophical Review 94 (4):557-570.
Is probability a dispositional property?Lawrence Sklar - 1970 - Journal of Philosophy 67 (11):355-366.
Zeno’s paradox of measure.Brian Skyrms - 1983 - In Robert S. Cohen & Larry Laudan (eds.), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum. D. Reidel. pp. 223--254.

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