The use of such concepts as randomness and probability is discussed and stochastic decisions occurring in the sacred texts are studied. In connection with probability, the measurements made in antiquity in order to comply with religious demands are also touched on. The cases where cause rather than randomness was recognized to be at work are indicated, and the statements contained in the Talmud and the thoughts of its later commentator, Maimonides, on hypotheses are linked with the appropriate opinions of Isaac (...) Newton and Jakob Bernoulli. (shrink)

Taken together with my previous articles [77], [80] devoted to the history of finite random sums and to Laplace's theory of errors, this paper sheds sufficient light on the whole work of Laplace in probability. Laplace's theory of probability is subdivided into theory of probability proper, limit theorems and mathematical statistics (not yet distinguished as a separate entity). I maintain that in its very design Laplace's theory of probability is a discipline pertaining to natural science rather than to mathematics. I (...) maintain also the idea that the so-called Laplacian determinism was no hindrance to applications of his theory of probability to natural science and that one of his utterances in this connection could have well been made by Maxwell's contemporaries. Two possible reasons why the theory of probability stagnated after Laplace's work are singled out: the absence of new fields of application and, also, the insufficient level of mathematical abstraction used by Laplace. For all his achievements, I reach the general conclusion that he did not originate the theory of probability as it is now known. (shrink)

From its beginnings religious philosophy confronted the challenge to reconcile Divine or natural determinism with man's moral freedom. In ancient Jewish thought, this gave rise to statistical ideas. In some Rabbinic texts, necessity is seen as inhering in collectives rather than in individuals. This is a statistical conception. Some miracles too were understood as highly improbable events, and remarkable phenomena were distinguished from usual ones. Medieval thinkers amplified and developed these ideas. Providential as well as natural determinism were explained as (...) operating in large numbers of individual acts of free will, an idea later taken up by Kant. (shrink)