The science of conjecture: Evidence and probability before Pascal
Baltimore, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press (2001)
Abstract
How were reliable predictions made before Pascal and Fermat's discovery of the mathematics of probability in 1654? What methods in law, science, commerce, philosophy, and logic helped us to get at the truth in cases where certainty was not attainable? The book examines how judges, witch inquisitors, and juries evaluated evidence; how scientists weighed reasons for and against scientific theories; and how merchants counted shipwrecks to determine insurance rates. Also included are the problem of induction before Hume, design arguments for the existence of God, and theories on how to evaluate scientific and historical hypotheses. It is explained how Pascal and Fermat's work on chance arose out of legal thought on aleatory contracts. The book interprets pre-Pascalian unquantified probability in a generally objective Bayesian or logical probabilist sense.
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2002
ISBN(s)
0801871093 1421418800 0801865697 9780801871092
PhilPapers/Archive ID
FRATSO
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Archival date: 2019-10-06
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2009-01-28
Total views
369 ( #20,523 of 69,180 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
83 ( #8,814 of 69,180 )
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