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Dispositional Probabilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

James H. Fetzer
James H. Fetzer*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Extract

The propensity interpretation poses an intriguing alternative to the frequency definition for the explication of probability as a physical magnitude. It is intended to provide an explicitly dispositional account of this concept within the context of statistical laws. First systematically advocated by Karl Popper, it has been endorsed - in one form or another - by Ian Hacking and D. H. Mellor, among others. The purpose of this paper is, first, to distinguish two rather different formulations of the propensity construct (which we shall refer to as the ‘long run’ and ‘single case’ concepts); second, to explain away some of the objections that, prima facie, might be thought to undermine an explication of this kind; and, third, to analyze the inadequacies of a single case dispositional account that fails to take seriously the concept of probability as a statistical disposition.

Type
Contributed Papers
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1970 , 1970 , pp. 473 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1970

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References

Notes

1 Popper, K., ‘The Propensity Interpretation of Probability’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 10 (1959) 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Popper, K., “The Propensity Interpretation of the Calculus of Probability, and the Quantum Theory’, in Observation and Interpretation in the Philosophy of Physics (ed. by Körner, S.), Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1955, p. 67Google Scholar.

3 Popper, op. cit., p. 68.

4 Popper, ‘The Propensity Interpretation of Probability’, p. 30.

5 Popper, ‘The Propensity Interpretation of the Calculus of Probability, and the Quantum Theory’, p. 68.

8 Popper, “The Propensity Interpretation of Probability’, p. 37.

7 Popper, op. cit., p. 35.

8 Hacking, I., Logic of Statistical Inference, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1965, p. 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Reichenbach, H., Experience and Prediction, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1938, pp. 313-14Google Scholar.

10 Reichenbach, H., The Theory of Probability, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1949, pp. 376-77Google Scholar.

11 Reichenbach, op. cit., p. 371.

12 Reichenbach, Experience and Prediction, pp. 363-73.

13 Reichenbach, op. cit., pp. 352-53.

14 Mellor, D. H., ‘Chance’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 1969, p. 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Mellor, op. cit., p. 26.