The Matter of Chance

Erscheinungsjahr 2004
ISBN: 978-0-521-61598-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 204 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 346 g

Statistical techniques and theories have become widely applied in the physical, biological and social sciences. The enormous increase in their scope and complexity has led to much philosophical discussion of their significance, and of the meaning in non-mathematical terms of the methods and concepts they employ. This book deals not so much with statistical methods as with the central concept of chance, or statistical probability, which statistical theories apply to nature. Examples range from the chance of a tossed coin falling heads to that of a man dying or a radioactive atom decaying in a fixed period of time. Chances seem, however, to be peculiar properties, and to belong to peculiar entitles, to events rather than to things.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mellor, D. H.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface; Introduction; 1. The limits of personalism; 2. Measuring partical belief; 3. Frequencies and trials; 4. Propensity; 5. Half lives and the force of mortality; 6. Imprecision and inexactness; 7. Connectivity and classical propensities; 8. Determinism and laws of nature; Apology; References; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Mellor, D. H.
D. H. Mellor is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.