On Chance: or Why I am (only) Half-Humean
Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science, edited by Shamik Dasgupta, Routledge.
Sleeping Beauty and Slacker Bob
Unpublished.
In Defense of the Chance-Mixing Principle: Response to Pettigrew
Nous, 49:1, p. 197-200.
A Modest Proposal About Chance
Journal of Philosophy, 108 (8), p. 416-442.
There has been a push from a number of quarters in the philosophy of physics and the special sciences to recognize a form of probability in deterministic contexts. The probability in question takes the form of a general objective measure Pr(A/B), where A and B are (states or properties represented by) finite volumes of phase space and Pr is the probability that a random pick from systems in B will yield a system that is in A. Here, I show how to use such probabilities to provide an interpretation of the objective single-case probabilities known as chances. The proposal unifies quantum- and statistical-mechanical probabilities, explains the epistemic role of chances, and resolves familiar difficulties attaching to their interpretation.
Probability in Deterministic Physics
Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy, 106 (2):89-108.
In a deterministic theory, one can deduce the state of the universe at any one time from the dynamical laws that govern its evolution and its state at any other time. In particular, one can deduce from the conditions that obtained at some early boundary condition for the universe, its state at all subsequent times. It is a piece of well-received philosophical common sense that there is no room in a deterministic theory for objective probabilities. In this paper, I argue that this piece of philosophical common sense is mistaken, and that a probability measure over the space of physically possible trajectories is an indispensable component of any theory—deterministic or otherwise— that can be used as a basis for prediction or receive confirmation from the evidence.
Raid! The Big, Bad Bug Dissolved
Nous, Volume 42, Number 2.
In 1980 David Lewis wrote a paper pointing out that a very broad class of accounts of the nature of chance apparently lead to a contradiction when combined with a principle that expresses the role of chance in guiding belief. There is still no settled agreement on the proper response to the Lewis problem. I propose a general recipe for using information about chance to guide belief that does not require conditionalization on a theory of chance and for which Lewis’ problem doesn’t arise.
An Objectivist Argument for Thirdism
With the OSCAR seminar, Analysis 68 (2):149-155.
The literature on the Sleeping Beauty problem has been dominated by Bayesians. Even those authors who are not Bayesians have addressed the problem without using much of the rich machinery available to objective probability theorists. We show that the objective probability theorist has a very simple argument for thirdism.
What Chances Could Not Be
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol 37, Number 1. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1093/bjps/47.1.79.
In probabilistic physical theories like quantum mechanics, the chances of physical events play the formal role that the values of physical quantities play in classical (deterministic) physics, and there is a temptation to regard them as describing intrinsic properties of the systems to which they are assigned. I argue that this understanding of chances is incompatible with a very wide range of metaphysical views about the nature of chance.
