Pragmatism and the Birth of Subjective Probability

Pragmatism, taken not just as a philosophical movement but as a way of addressing problems, strongly influenced the debate on the foundations of probability during the first half of the twentieth century. Upholders of different interpretations of probability such as Hans Reichenbach, Ernest Nagel, R...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Publicado no:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap,
Autor principal: Galavotti, Maria Carla
Formato: Article ou chapitre numérique
Idioma:Anglais
Publicado em: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 2019
Acesso em linha:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Descrição
Resumo:Pragmatism, taken not just as a philosophical movement but as a way of addressing problems, strongly influenced the debate on the foundations of probability during the first half of the twentieth century. Upholders of different interpretations of probability such as Hans Reichenbach, Ernest Nagel, Rudolf Carnap, Frank Ramsey, and Bruno de Finetti, acknowledged their debt towards pragmatist philosophers, including Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Clarence Irving Lewis, William Dewey and Giovanni Vailati. In addition, scientist-philosophers like Ernst Mach, Ludwig Boltzmann, Henri Poincaré, Pierre Duhem, and Karl Pearson, who heralded a conception of science and knowledge at large that was close to pragmatism, were very influential in that debate. Among the main interpretations of probability – frequentism, propensionism, logicism and subjectivism -, the latter is no doubt the closest to the pragmatist outlook. This paper concentrates on three representatives of the subjective theory, namely Frank Ramsey, Bruno de Finetti and Émile Borel.