The emergence of probability : a philosophical study of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The emergence of probability : a philosophical study of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference

Ian Hacking

Cambridge University Press, 1984, c1975

1st pbk. ed

  • : pbk

Available at  / 24 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Bibliography: p. 187-202

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Historical records show that there was no real concept of probability in Europe before the mid-seventeenth century although the use of dice and other randomizing objects was commonplace. Ian Hacking here presents a philosophical critique of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference and the growth of this new family of ideas in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contemporary debate centres round such figures as Pascal, Leibniz and Jacques Bernoulli. What brought about the change in ideas? The author invokes in his explanation a wider intellectual framework involving the growth of science, economics and the theology of the period.

Table of Contents

  • 1. An absent family of ideas
  • 2. Duality
  • 3. Opinion
  • 4. Evidence
  • 5. Signs
  • 6. The first calculations
  • 7. The Roannez circle (1654)
  • 8. The great decision (1658?)
  • 9. The art of thinking (1662)
  • 10. Probability and the law (1665)
  • 11. Expectation (1657)
  • 12. Political arithmetic (1662)
  • 13. Annuities (1671)
  • 14. Equipossibility (1678)
  • 15. Inductive logic
  • 16. The art of conjecturing (1692[?] published 1713)
  • 17. The first limit theorem
  • 18. Design
  • 19. Induction (1737)
  • Bibliography
  • Index.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top