Probability

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Related to Probability calculus: probability density

PROBABILITY. That which is likely to happen; that which is most consonant to reason; for example, there is a strong probability that a man of a good moral character, and who has heretofore been remarkable for truth, will, when examined as a witness under oath, tell the truth; and, on the contrary, that a man who has been guilty of perjury, will not, under the same circumstances, tell the truth; the former will, therefore, be entitled to credit, while the latter will not.

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.

References in periodicals archive ?

We tend to forget that mathematical constructs operate only within their assumed system, and that the probability calculus assumes all events will take a value of either 1 or 0.

Death of paradox: the killer logic beneath the standards of proof

(4) The standard Bayesian defence of the requirement of probabilistic coherence is the 'Dutch-book argument': if your degrees of belief violate the probability calculus, then there exists a set of bets which you will judge to be fair, but is guaranteed to lose you money.

Epistemic justification and deductive closure

My claim that the standard theory of probability may have heuristic value in historical investigation does not presuppose that the standard probability calculus is the only valid paradigm of inferential argument.

"Beyond Reasonable Doubt" and "Probable Cause": Historical Perspectives on the Anglo-American Law of Evidence

How are we to construe the probability calculus? According to radical Bayesians ("subjectivists"), it constitutes the entire story about rationality.

Decision Theory as Philosophy

Secondly, the interpretation of conditional probabilities as what your degrees of belief would be were you to learn the truth of the conditioning proposition is not one that satisfies the probability calculus in conjunction with some unexceptionable factual statements.

On Chihara's 'The Howson-Urbach Proofs of Bayesian Principles.' (criticism of the book 'Scientific Reasoning: the Bayesian Approach')

So it's just a cheat to assume that we are talking about the same sort of thing - "probability" - in both The fact is that the only relation that so-called conditional probability", as defined by (1), has to any kind of probability - where the latter is understood as a notion explicated by the axioms of the standard probability calculus (Kolmogorov's axioms) - is that the former is defined as a ratio of probabilities.

Conditional probability and conditional beliefs

Furthermore, to the extent that her credences cohere with the axioms of the probability calculus the credence that she attaches to such hypotheses have already exerted their influence on the other hypotheses to which they are probabilistically relevant given her particular personal probability function.

Confirmation, explanation, and logical strength

Earman devotes the greatest attention to the criticisms of Thomas Bayes and Richard Price who argued, on the basis of the probability calculus, that Hume's argument is flawed.

Earman, John. Hume's Abject Failure: the Argument Against Miracles

theories in which one or more axioms of the probability calculus (usually the additivity axiom) is infringed.

Theories of probability

The rules of consistency are those of the probability calculus (including countable additivity).

Bayesian conditionalization and probability kinematics

This looseness will feature when we come to assess how knowable probabilities are, in section 6, but we shall see that the more determinate aspects of the probability calculus are themselves already sufficient to tell us a great deal about knowledge and belief, in Section 5.