Authors
David Lewis
Publication date
1980/12/31
Book
IFS: Conditionals, belief, decision, chance and time
Pages
267-297
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Description
We subjectivists conceive of probability as the measure of reasonable partial belief. But we need not make war against other conceptions of probability, declaring that where subjective credence leaves off, there nonsense begins. Along with subjective credence we should believe also in objective chance. The practice and the analysis of science require both concepts. Neither can replace the other. Among the propositions that deserve our credence we find, for instance, the proposition that (as a matter of contingent fact about our world) any tritium atom that now exists has a certain chance of decaying within a year. Why should we subjectivists be less able than other folk to make sense of that?
Carnap (1945) did well to distinguish two concepts of probability, insisting that both were legitimate and useful and that neither was at fault because it was not the other. I do not think Carnap chose quite the righttwo concepts …
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