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  1. Fifteen Arguments Against Hypothetical Frequentism.Alan Hájek - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (2):211-235.
    This is the sequel to my “Fifteen Arguments Against Finite Frequentism” ( Erkenntnis 1997), the second half of a long paper that attacks the two main forms of frequentism about probability. Hypothetical frequentism asserts: The probability of an attribute A in a reference class B is p iff the limit of the relative frequency of A ’s among the B ’s would be p if there were an infinite sequence of B ’s. I offer fifteen arguments against this analysis. I (...)
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  • The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology.Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.) - 2016 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...)
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  • Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures.Patrick Suppes - 2002 - CSLI Publications (distributed by Chicago University Press).
    An early, very preliminary edition of this book was circulated in 1962 under the title Set-theoretical Structures in Science. There are many reasons for maintaining that such structures play a role in the philosophy of science. Perhaps the best is that they provide the right setting for investigating problems of representation and invariance in any systematic part of science, past or present. Examples are easy to cite. Sophisticated analysis of the nature of representation in perception is to be found already (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Probability and Randomness.Antony Eagle - 2016 - In Alan Hájek & Christopher Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 440-459.
    Early work on the frequency theory of probability made extensive use of the notion of randomness, conceived of as a property possessed by disorderly collections of outcomes. Growing out of this work, a rich mathematical literature on algorithmic randomness and Kolmogorov complexity developed through the twentieth century, but largely lost contact with the philosophical literature on physical probability. The present chapter begins with a clarification of the notions of randomness and probability, conceiving of the former as a property of a (...)
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  • Practical Intractability: A Critique of the Hypercomputation Movement. [REVIEW]Aran Nayebi - 2014 - Minds and Machines 24 (3):275-305.
    For over a decade, the hypercomputation movement has produced computational models that in theory solve the algorithmically unsolvable, but they are not physically realizable according to currently accepted physical theories. While opponents to the hypercomputation movement provide arguments against the physical realizability of specific models in order to demonstrate this, these arguments lack the generality to be a satisfactory justification against the construction of any information-processing machine that computes beyond the universal Turing machine. To this end, I present a more (...)
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  • Theory construction in psychology: The interpretation and integration of psychological data.Gordon M. Becker - 1981 - Theory and Decision 13 (3):251-273.
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  • Causation, Coherence and Concepts : a Collection of Essays.Wolfgang Spohn - unknown
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  • Relative Randomness and Cardinality.George Barmpalias - 2010 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 51 (2):195-205.
    A set $B\subseteq\mathbb{N}$ is called low for Martin-Löf random if every Martin-Löf random set is also Martin-Löf random relative to B . We show that a $\Delta^0_2$ set B is low for Martin-Löf random if and only if the class of oracles which compress less efficiently than B , namely, the class $\mathcal{C}^B=\{A\ |\ \forall n\ K^B(n)\leq^+ K^A(n)\}$ is countable (where K denotes the prefix-free complexity and $\leq^+$ denotes inequality modulo a constant. It follows that $\Delta^0_2$ is the largest arithmetical (...)
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  • A history of theoria.Sven Ove Hansson - 2009 - Theoria 75 (1):2-27.
    Theoria , the international Swedish philosophy journal, was founded in 1935. Its contributors in the first 75 years include the major Swedish philosophers from this period and in addition a long list of international philosophers, including A. J. Ayer, C. D. Broad, Ernst Cassirer, Hector Neri Castañeda, Arthur C. Danto, Donald Davidson, Nelson Goodman, R. M. Hare, Carl G. Hempel, Jaakko Hintikka, Saul Kripke, Henry E. Kyburg, Keith Lehrer, Isaac Levi, David Lewis, Gerald MacCallum, Richard Montague, Otto Neurath, Arthur N. (...)
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  • (1 other version)The philosophy of computer science.Raymond Turner - 2013 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • The reference class problem is your problem too.Alan Hájek - 2007 - Synthese 156 (3):563--585.
    The reference class problem arises when we want to assign a probability to a proposition (or sentence, or event) X, which may be classified in various ways, yet its probability can change depending on how it is classified. The problem is usually regarded as one specifically for the frequentist interpretation of probability and is often considered fatal to it. I argue that versions of the classical, logical, propensity and subjectivist interpretations also fall prey to their own variants of the reference (...)
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  • Randomness Is Unpredictability.Antony Eagle - 2005 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (4):749-790.
    The concept of randomness has been unjustly neglected in recent philosophical literature, and when philosophers have thought about it, they have usually acquiesced in views about the concept that are fundamentally flawed. After indicating the ways in which these accounts are flawed, I propose that randomness is to be understood as a special case of the epistemic concept of the unpredictability of a process. This proposal arguably captures the intuitive desiderata for the concept of randomness; at least it should suggest (...)
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  • Physical Computation: How General are Gandy’s Principles for Mechanisms?B. Jack Copeland & Oron Shagrir - 2007 - Minds and Machines 17 (2):217-231.
    What are the limits of physical computation? In his ‘Church’s Thesis and Principles for Mechanisms’, Turing’s student Robin Gandy proved that any machine satisfying four idealised physical ‘principles’ is equivalent to some Turing machine. Gandy’s four principles in effect define a class of computing machines (‘Gandy machines’). Our question is: What is the relationship of this class to the class of all (ideal) physical computing machines? Gandy himself suggests that the relationship is identity. We do not share this view. We (...)
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  • Hypercomputation.B. Jack Copeland - 2002 - Minds and Machines 12 (4):461-502.
    A survey of the field of hypercomputation, including discussion of a variety of objections.
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  • Computing mechanisms.Gualtiero Piccinini - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (4):501-526.
    This paper offers an account of what it is for a physical system to be a computing mechanism—a system that performs computations. A computing mechanism is a mechanism whose function is to generate output strings from input strings and (possibly) internal states, in accordance with a general rule that applies to all relevant strings and depends on the input strings and (possibly) internal states for its application. This account is motivated by reasons endogenous to the philosophy of computing, namely, doing (...)
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  • Hypothetical Frequencies as Approximations.Jer Steeger - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1295-1325.
    Hájek (Erkenntnis 70(2):211–235, 2009) argues that probabilities cannot be the limits of relative frequencies in counterfactual infinite sequences. I argue for a different understanding of these limits, drawing on Norton’s (Philos Sci 79(2):207–232, 2012) distinction between approximations (inexact descriptions of a target) and idealizations (separate models that bear analogies to the target). Then, I adapt Hájek’s arguments to this new context. These arguments provide excellent reasons not to use hypothetical frequencies as idealizations, but no reason not to use them as (...)
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  • Philosophy as conceptual engineering: Inductive logic in Rudolf Carnap's scientific philosophy.Christopher F. French - 2015 - Dissertation, University of British Columbia
    My dissertation explores the ways in which Rudolf Carnap sought to make philosophy scientific by further developing recent interpretive efforts to explain Carnap’s mature philosophical work as a form of engineering. It does this by looking in detail at his philosophical practice in his most sustained mature project, his work on pure and applied inductive logic. I, first, specify the sort of engineering Carnap is engaged in as involving an engineering design problem and then draw out the complications of design (...)
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  • A frequentist interpretation of probability for model-based inductive inference.Aris Spanos - 2013 - Synthese 190 (9):1555-1585.
    The main objective of the paper is to propose a frequentist interpretation of probability in the context of model-based induction, anchored on the Strong Law of Large Numbers (SLLN) and justifiable on empirical grounds. It is argued that the prevailing views in philosophy of science concerning induction and the frequentist interpretation of probability are unduly influenced by enumerative induction, and the von Mises rendering, both of which are at odds with frequentist model-based induction that dominates current practice. The differences between (...)
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  • What is Probability?Patrick Maher - unknown
    In October 2009 I decided to stop doing philosophy. This meant, in particular, stopping work on the book that I was writing on the nature of probability. At that time, I had no intention of making my unfinished draft available to others. However, I recently noticed how many people are reading the lecture notes and articles on my web site. Since this draft book contains some important improvements on those materials, I decided to make it available to anyone who wants (...)
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  • Theories of probability.Colin Howson - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (1):1-32.
    My title is intended to recall Terence Fine's excellent survey, Theories of Probability [1973]. I shall consider some developments that have occurred in the intervening years, and try to place some of the theories he discussed in what is now a slightly longer perspective. Completeness is not something one can reasonably hope to achieve in a journal article, and any selection is bound to reflect a view of what is salient. In a subject as prone to dispute as this, there (...)
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  • Infinite frequency principles of direct inference.Lennart B. Ackermans - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2).
    According to an infinite frequency principle, it is rational, under certain conditions, to set your credence in an outcome to the limiting frequency of that outcome if the experiment were repeated indefinitely. I argue that most infinite frequency principles are undesirable in at least one of the following ways: accepting the principle would lead you to accept bets with sure losses, the principle gives no guidance in the case of deterministic experiments like coin tosses and the principle relies on a (...)
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  • How to Explain Miscomputation.Chris Tucker - 2018 - Philosophers' Imprint 18:1-17.
    Just as theory of representation is deficient if it can’t explain how misrepresentation is possible, a theory of computation is deficient if it can’t explain how miscomputation is possible. Nonetheless, philosophers have generally ignored miscomputation. My primary goal in this paper is to clarify both what miscomputation is and how to adequately explain it. Miscomputation is a special kind of malfunction: a system miscomputes when it computes in a way that it shouldn’t. To explain miscomputation, you must provide accounts of (...)
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  • Objectively homogeneous reference classes.Wesley C. Salmon - 1977 - Synthese 36 (4):399 - 414.
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  • Uniform probability in cosmology.Sylvia Wenmackers - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 101 (C):48-60.
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  • Ken Binmore * Rational Decisions. [REVIEW]Brian Skyrms - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2):449-453.
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  • A criterion of probabilistic causation.Charles R. Twardy & Kevin B. Korb - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (3):241-262.
    The investigation of probabilistic causality has been plagued by a variety of misconceptions and misunderstandings. One has been the thought that the aim of the probabilistic account of causality is the reduction of causal claims to probabilistic claims. Nancy Cartwright (1979) has clearly rebutted that idea. Another ill-conceived idea continues to haunt the debate, namely the idea that contextual unanimity can do the work of objective homogeneity. It cannot. We argue that only objective homogeneity in combination with a causal interpretation (...)
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  • Probabilistic issues in statistical mechanics.Gérard G. Emch - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 36 (2):303-322.
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  • Computation and hypercomputation.Mike Stannett - 2003 - Minds and Machines 13 (1):115-153.
    Does Nature permit the implementation of behaviours that cannot be simulated computationally? We consider the meaning of physical computation in some detail, and present arguments in favour of physical hypercomputation: for example, modern scientific method does not allow the specification of any experiment capable of refuting hypercomputation. We consider the implications of relativistic algorithms capable of solving the (Turing) Halting Problem. We also reject as a fallacy the argument that hypercomputation has no relevance because non-computable values are indistinguishable from sufficiently (...)
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  • Randomness by design.William A. Dembski - 1991 - Noûs 25 (1):75-106.
    “Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.”1 John von Neumann’s famous dictum points an accusing finger at all who set their ordered minds to engender disorder. Much as in times past thieves, pimps, and actors carried on their profession with an uneasy conscience, so in this day scientists who devise random number generators suffer pangs of guilt. George Marsaglia, perhaps the preeminent worker in the field, quips when he asks his (...)
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  • On individual risk.Philip Dawid - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3445-3474.
    We survey a variety of possible explications of the term “Individual Risk.” These in turn are based on a variety of interpretations of “Probability,” including classical, enumerative, frequency, formal, metaphysical, personal, propensity, chance and logical conceptions of probability, which we review and compare. We distinguish between “groupist” and “individualist” understandings of probability, and explore both “group to individual” and “individual to group” approaches to characterising individual risk. Although in the end that concept remains subtle and elusive, some pragmatic suggestions for (...)
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  • Feminist Philosophy of Science.Lynn Hankinson Nelson - 2002 - In Peter K. Machamer & Michael Silberstein (eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of science. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 312–331.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.
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  • Basic elements and problems of probability theory.Hans Primas - unknown
    After a brief review of ontic and epistemic descriptions, and of subjective, logical and statistical interpretations of probability, we summarize the traditional axiomatization of calculus of probability in terms of Boolean algebras and its set-theoretical realization in terms of Kolmogorov probability spaces. Since the axioms of mathematical probability theory say nothing about the conceptual meaning of “randomness” one considers probability as property of the generating conditions of a process so that one can relate randomness with predictability (or retrodictability). In the (...)
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  • Kolmogorov and mathematical logic.Vladimir A. Uspensky - 1992 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 57 (2):385-412.
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  • Probability in 1919/20: the von Mises-Pólya-Controversy.Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze - 2006 - Archive for History of Exact Sciences 60 (5):431-515.
    The correspondence between Richard von Mises and George Pólya of 1919/20 contains reflections on two well-known articles by von Mises on the foundations of probability in the Mathematische Zeitschrift of 1919, and one paper from the Physikalische Zeitschrift of 1918. The topics touched on in the correspondence are: the proof of the central limit theorem of probability theory, von Mises' notion of randomness, and a statistical criterion for integer-valuedness of physical data. The investigation will hint at both the fruitfulness and (...)
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  • How Not To Use the Church-Turing Thesis Against Platonism.R. Urbaniak - 2011 - Philosophia Mathematica 19 (1):74-89.
    Olszewski claims that the Church-Turing thesis can be used in an argument against platonism in philosophy of mathematics. The key step of his argument employs an example of a supposedly effectively computable but not Turing-computable function. I argue that the process he describes is not an effective computation, and that the argument relies on the illegitimate conflation of effective computability with there being a way to find out . ‘Ah, but,’ you say, ‘what’s the use of its being right twice (...)
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  • Should Computability Be Epistemic? a Logical and Physical Point of View.Florent Franchette - 2016 - Philosophies 1 (1):15--27.
    Although the formalizations of computability provided in the 1930s have proven to be equivalent, two different accounts of computability may be distinguished regarding computability as an epistemic concept. While computability, according to the epistemic account, should be based on epistemic constraints related to the capacities of human computers, the non-epistemic account considers computability as based on manipulations of symbols that require no human capacities other than the capacity of manipulating symbols according to a set of rules. In this paper, I (...)
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  • Probability, symmetry and frequency.A. P. Dawid - 1985 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 36 (2):107-128.
    We consider the meaning of the assignment of probabilities to events implied by the kind of model regularly used by Statisticians. Traditional frequentist understandings are reviewed and rejected. It is argued that many statistical models may be justified purely on the basis of the symmetry properties enjoyed by the observables being modelled.
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  • Significance Testing with No Alternative Hypothesis: A Measure of Surprise.J. V. Howard - 2009 - Erkenntnis 70 (2):253-270.
    A pure significance test would check the agreement of a statistical model with the observed data even when no alternative model was available. The paper proposes the use of a modified p -value to make such a test. The model will be rejected if something surprising is observed. It is shown that the relation between this measure of surprise and the surprise indices of Weaver and Good is similar to the relationship between a p -value, a corresponding odds-ratio, and a (...)
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  • Formal philosophy.Jeffry Pelletier - 1977 - Metaphilosophy 8 (4):320-341.
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  • Strict process machine complexity.Ferit Toska - 2014 - Archive for Mathematical Logic 53 (5-6):525-538.
    We introduce a notion of description for infinite sequences and their sets, and a corresponding notion of complexity. We show that for strict process machines, complexity of a sequence or of a subset of Cantor space is equal to its effective Hausdorff dimension.
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  • Causation, randomness, and pseudo-randomness in John Venn's logic of chance.Byron E. Wall - 2005 - History and Philosophy of Logic 26 (4):299-319.
    In 1866, the young John Venn published The Logic of Chance, motivated largely by the desire to correct what he saw as deep fallacies in the reasoning of historical determinists such as Henry Buckle and in the optimistic heralding of a true social science by Adolphe Quetelet. Venn accepted the inevitable determinism implied by the physical sciences, but denied that the stable social statistics cited by Buckle and Quetelet implied a similar determinism in human actions. Venn maintained that probability statements (...)
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  • Randomness, computation and mathematics.Rod Downey - 2012 - In S. Barry Cooper (ed.), How the World Computes. pp. 162--181.
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