The Ghost of Pragmatism. Some Historical Remarks on the Debate on the Foundations of Probability

Galavotti, Maria Carla

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-50730-9_9

Maria Carla Galavotti⁵

Part of the book series: Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook ((VCIY,volume 19))

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Abstract

This paper explores the impact of pragmatism on logical empiricism in connection with the debate on the foundations of probability. Peirce ’s conception of probability, anticipating the propensity interpretation launched by Popper in the late 1950s, is recalled together with the multifarious influence he had on a number of authors including Nagel , Reichenbach , and Ramsey . This is followed by a discussion of the impact of C.I. Lewis ’s viewpoint on Carnap , to conclude with an overview of de Finetti ’s deeply pragmatist perspective.

This article is an expanded version of my “Probability and Pragmatism”, in: Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Stephan Hartmann, Thomas Uebel , Marcel Weber (Eds.), Explanation, Prediction, and Confirmation, Dordrecht: Springer, 2011, pp. 499–510. A number of passages appearing here are borrowed from that paper.

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Notes

1.
Hermann Weyl , “The Ghost of Modality”, in: Marvin Farber (Ed.), Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940, pp. 278–303.
2.
See Max H. Fish , “Justice Holmes, the Prediction Theory of Law, and Pragmatism”, in: Kenneth Laine Ketner and Christian J. W. Kloesel (Eds.), Peirce , Semeiotic, and Pragmatism. Papers by Max H. Fish , Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986, pp. 6–18.
3.
See Arthur Lovejoy , The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Other Essays, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, pp. 1–29.
4.
See Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller , Studies in Humanism, London-New York: Macmillan, 1907.
5.
See Philip Wiener , “Pragmatism”, in: Philip Wiener (Ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973, volume III, pp. 551–570.
6.
William James , Pragmatism, London-New York: Longman, 1907. Reprinted London, Routledge 1992, p. 109.
7.
Charles Sanders Peirce , “How to Make our Ideas Clear”, in: Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Eds.), Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934, 5.402.
8.
William James , Pragmatism, cit., p. 39.
9.
In this connection, Fish (among others) stresses the influence exercised upon pragmatists by Alexander Bain. See Max H. Fish , “Alexander Bain and the Genealogy of Pragmatism”, in: Kenneth Laine Ketner and Christian J. W. Kloesel (Eds.), Peirce , Semeiotic, and Pragmatism. Papers by Max H. Fish , cit., pp. 79–109.
10.
Julius Pikler, The Psychology of Belief in Objective Existence, London-Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1890, p. 54. Quoted by Giovanni Vailati , “Le origini e l’idea fondamentale del pragmatismo”, in: Rivista di psicologia applicata V (1909); reprinted in: Scritti, Ed. Mario Quaranta, Sala Bolognese: Forni Editore, 1987, volume I, p. 116–128.
11.
See Charles Sanders Peirce , Collected Papers, cit., 1.280, 1.444, 5.85, 5.133, 5.533, 8.191.
12.
Ian Hacking , The Taming of Chance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 215.
13.
Theodor Porter , The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, p. 221.
14.
Charles Sanders Peirce , “Notes on the Doctrine of Chances” (1910), in: Collected Papers, cit., 8.4.
15.
Ibidem, 2.661.
16.
Ibidem, 2.664.
17.
See Karl Popper , “The Propensity Interpretation of the Calculus of Probability, and the Quantum Theory”, in: Stephen Körner (Ed.), Observation and Interpretation, London: Butterworths, 1957, pp. 65–70; and “The Propensity Interpretation of Probability”, in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 10, 1959, pp. 25–42.
18.
See Karl Popper , A World of Propensities, Bristol: Thoemmes, 1990.
19.
Karl Popper , “The Propensity Interpretation of Probability”, cit., p. 67.
20.
This is argued in some detail by Donald Gillies, Philosophical Theories of Probability, London: Routledge, 2000, where more on the propensity theory of probability can be found.
21.
Ernest Nagel , “A Frequency Theory of Probability”, in: The Journal of Philosophy, 30, 1933, p. 537.
22.
Ibidem, p. 541.
23.
Ibidem, p. 551.
24.
Ernest Nagel , “The Meaning of Probability”, in: Journal of the American Statistical Association, 31, 1936, p. 26.
25.
Ernest Nagel , “Probability and the Theory of Knowledge”, in: Philosophy of Science, 6, 1939, p. 230. In the same paper the reader will find a detailed criticism of Reichenbach ’s theory of probability.
26.
Ernest Nagel , “Carnap ’s Theory of Induction”, in: Paul Arthur Schilpp (Ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1963, p. 789.
27.
Ernest Nagel , “The Meaning of Probability”, cit., p. 21.
28.
Ernest Nagel , Principles of the Theory of Probability, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 59.
29.
Ibidem, p. 73.
30.
Reported it in Hook ’s memoir appearing in Maria Reichenbach and Robert S. Cohen (Eds.), Hans Reichenbach , Selected Writings, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978, volume I, pp. 32–35.
31.
Hans Reichenbach , “Logicist Empiricism in Germany and the Present State of Its Problems”, in: Journal of Philosophy 6, 1936, p. 143.
32.
Hans Reichenbach , “The Verifiability Theory of Meaning”, in: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 53, 1951, p. 47.
33.
Hans Reichenbach , Experience and Prediction, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 80. Italics original.
34.
Ibidem, p. 49.
35.
Ibidem. See also footnote 10, where Peirce is quoted and James, Dewey and Schiller are mentioned.
36.
Ibidem, p. 69.
37.
Hans Reichenbach , “La philosophie scientifique: une esquisse de ses traits principaux”, in: Travaux du IX Congrès International de Philosophie, Paris: Hermann, 1937, p. 89 (my translation).
38.
Hans Reichenbach , “Logicist Empiricism in Germany and the Present State of Its Problems”, cit., p. 159.
39.
Hans Reichenbach , Experience and Prediction, cit., p. 339. Italics original.
40.
For a comparison between Reichenbach ’s and von Mises ’s versions of frequentism, see Maria Carla Galavotti, “On Hans Reichenbach ’s Inductivism”, in: Synthèse, 181, 2011, pp. 95–111.
41.
Hans Reichenbach , The Theory of Probability, Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949, 2nd edition 1971, p. 430, footnote 1. The book is the English (revised and expanded) version of Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre, Leyden: Sijthoff, 1935.
42.
Hans Reichenbach , Experience and Prediction, cit., p. 339.
43.
Ibidem, p. 346.
44.
See Herbert Feigl , “De principiis non disputandum ...? On the Meaning and the Limits of Justification”, in: Max Black (Ed.), Philosophical Analysis, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, pp. 119–156. Reprinted in: Herbert Feigl , Inquiries and Provocations: Selected Writings 1929–1974, Ed. Robert S. Cohen, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980, pp. 237–268.
45.
Clarence Irving Lewis , An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1946, 2nd edition 1950, p. 291.
46.
Ibidem, p. 304.
47.
Ibidem, p. 314.
48.
Rudolf Carnap , Logical Foundations of Probability, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950, p. ix. Italics original.
49.
Richard C. Jeffrey , “Introduction: Radical Probabilism”, in: Probability and the Art of Judgment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 2–3.
50.
Ibidem, p. 11.
51.
See Alan Richardson , “Carnapian Pragmatism”, in: Michael Friedman and Richard Creath (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Carnap, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 295–315; and Cornelis van de Waal, On Pragmatism, Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 2005.
52.
See A.W. Carus , Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
53.
Rudolf Carnap , Meaning and Necessity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947, 2nd edition 1956, p. 250.
54.
Rudolf Carnap , “Replies”, in: Paul Arthur Schilpp (Ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1963, pp. 87–98. For an insightful discussion of the exchange between Carnap and Morris and a comparison of their views on pragmatics see Thomas Uebel , “Pragmatics in Carnap and Morris and the Bipartite Metatheory Conception”, in: Erkenntnis, 78, 2013, pp. 523–546.
55.
See Rudolf Carnap , “Inductive Logic and Rational Decisions” and “A Basic System of Inductive Logic, Part 1”, in: Rudolf Carnap and Richard C. Jeffrey (Eds.), Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, volume I, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
56.
Rudolf Carnap , “The Aim of Inductive Logic”, in: Ernest Nagel , Patrick Suppes and Alfred Tarski (Eds.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962, pp. 303–318.
57.
See Rudolf Carnap , “Inductive Logic and Inductive Intuition”, in: Imre Lakatos (Ed.), The Problem of Inductive Logic, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1968, pp. 257–267.
58.
Rudolf Carnap , “Replies”, cit., p. 978.
59.
For more on this see Philip A. Dawid and Maria Carla Galavotti, “De Finetti ’s Subjectivism, Objective Probability, and the Empirical Validation of Probability Assessments”, in: Maria Carla Galavotti (Ed.), Bruno de Finetti , Radical Probabilist, London: College Publications, 2009, pp. 97–114.
60.
Philip Wiener , “Pragmatism”, cit., p. 553.
61.
Horace Standish Thayer, Meaning and Action. A Critical History of Pragmatism, Indianapolis-New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1968, p. 311.
62.
Frank Plumpton Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, Ed. Hugh Mellor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 51.
63.
Ibidem, p. 93.
64.
Ibidem, p. 90.
65.
Frank Plumpton Ramsey, Notes of Philosophy, Probability and Mathematics, Ed. Maria Carla Galavotti, Naples: Bibliopolis, 1990, p. 227.
66.
Frank Plumpton Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, cit., p. 161.
67.
Ibidem.
68.
Ibidem, p. 149. For more on Ramsey’s pragmatism see Maria Carla Galavotti, “New Prospects for Pragmatism: Ramsey’s Constructivism”, in: Maria Carla Galavotti, Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Stephan Hartmann, Thomas Uebel and Marcel Weber (Eds.), New Directions in the Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht: Springer, 2014, pp. 645–656.
69.
Bruno de Finetti , Teoria delle probabilità, Turin: Einaudi, 1970, English edition Theory of Probability, New York: Wiley, 1975, p. 41.
70.
See Richard C. Jeffrey , “De Finetti ’s Radical Probabilism”, in: Bruno de Finetti , Probabilità e induzione – Induction and Probability, Eds. Paola Monari and Daniela Cocchi, Bologna: CLUEB, 1992, pp. 263–275.
71.
Bruno de Finetti , “Probabilismo”, in: Logos, 1931, pp. 3–70, English version “Probabilism”, in: Erkenntnis, 31, 1989, p. 170. For more on de Finetti ’s subjectivism see volume 31 of Erkenntnis, nos. 3–4, entirely devoted to “Bruno de Finetti ’s Philosophy of Probability”.
72.
Bruno de Finetti , “Subjective or Objective Probability: is the Dispute Undecidable?”, in: Symposia Mathematica, 9, 1972, p. 34. For more on de Finetti ’s philosophy of probability see Maria Carla Galavotti, “Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Probability: Bruno de Finetti ’s Subjectivism”, in: Erkenntnis, 31, 1989, pp. 239–261.
73.
David Miller , Critical Rationalism. A Restatement and Defence, Chicago: Open Court, 1994, p. 183.
74.
Quoted from Charles Morris , “Pragmatism and Logical Empiricism”, in: Paul Arthur Schilpp (Ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap , cit., pp. 87–98.
75.
See Patrick Suppes , Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures, Stanford: CSLI, 2002.

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Maria Carla Galavotti

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Sami Pihlström
Institut Wiener Kreis, Universität Wien , Vienna, Austria
Friedrich Stadler
Forum Scientiarum, Universität Tübingen Forum Scientiarum, Tübingen, Germany
Niels Weidtmann

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Galavotti, M.C. (2017). The Ghost of Pragmatism. Some Historical Remarks on the Debate on the Foundations of Probability. In: Pihlström, S., Stadler, F., Weidtmann, N. (eds) Logical Empiricism and Pragmatism. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50730-9_9

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