Abstract
Arthur W. Burks has argued with care and in detail for a theory of ampliative inference with a number of important and unique features. The outcome of his work in this area is contained in Chance, Cause, Reason (1977). Central to his system is his concept of inductive probability. His analysis of this concept has been strongly influenced by C. S. Peirce’s pragmatic theory of meaning. According to this theory we should equate the meaning of a statement with “the set of those practical conditionals that are logically implied by the statement” (p. 167). This can not be applied directly to probability statements; since the practical consequences of scientific statements must so often be expressed in terms of probability. So as to develop a satisfactory pragmatic theory of probability, Burks relates inductive probability on the one hand to a Calculus of Choice and on the other to empirical probability and causation.
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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Clendinnen, F.J. (1990). Presuppositions and the Normative Content of Probability Statements. In: Salmon, M.H. (eds) The Philosophy of Logical Mechanism. Synthese Library, vol 206. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0987-8_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0987-8_12
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