Propensities and Pragmatism

old_uid16898
titlePropensities and Pragmatism
start_date2018/12/03
schedule10h45-12h15
onlineno
location_infosalle de conférence
summaryIn this first lecture I outline a general pragmatist conception of propensity and defend it against common objections to the propensity interpretation of probability, prominently Humphreys’ paradox. I review the paradox, and identify one of its key assumptions, the identity thesis which states that propensities are probabilities (under a suitable interpretation of Kolmogorov’s axioms). I argue that the identity thesis is involved in many empiricist versions of the propensity interpretation deriving from Popper’s original and influential proposal, and makes such interpretations untenable. As an alternative, I offer a version of a pragmatist conception of dispositional probabilities, which rejects the identity thesis.
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