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David Lewis's Humean Theory of Objective Chance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Barry Loewer
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Abstract

The most important theories in fundamental physics, quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, posit objective probabilities or chances. As important as chance is there is little agreement about what it is. The usual “interpretations of probability” give very different accounts of chance and there is disagreement concerning which, if any, is capable of accounting for its role in physics. David Lewis has contributed enormously to improving this situation. In his classic paper “A Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance” he described a framework for representing single case objective chances, showed how they are connected to subjective credences, and sketched a novel account what they are within his Humean account of scientific laws. Here I will describe these contributions and add a little to them.

Type
David Lewis's Contributions to Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers , December 2004 , pp. 1115 - 1125
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to David Albert, Tim Maudlin, Frank Arntzenius, and David Papineau for comments on various versions of this paper.

References

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