Items related to A Philosophical Guide to Chance: Physical Probability

A Philosophical Guide to Chance: Physical Probability - Hardcover

Handfield, Toby

  • 3.57 out of 5 stars
    7 ratings by Goodreads
 
9781107013780: A Philosophical Guide to Chance: Physical Probability
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 110701378X ISBN 13: 9781107013780
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2012

Synopsis

It is a commonplace that scientific inquiry makes extensive use of probabilities, many of which seem to be objective chances, describing features of reality that are independent of our minds. Such chances appear to have a number of paradoxical or puzzling features: they appear to be mind-independent facts, but they are intimately connected with rational psychology; they display a temporal asymmetry, but they are supposed to be grounded in physical laws that are time-symmetric; and chances are used to explain and predict frequencies of events, although they cannot be reduced to those frequencies. This book offers an accessible and non-technical introduction to these and other puzzles. Toby Handfield engages with traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science, drawing upon recent work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics to provide a novel account of objective probability that is empirically informed without requiring specialist scientific knowledge.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Toby Handfield is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, Monash University. He is the editor of Dispositions and Causes (2009).

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication date
2012
Language
English
ISBN 10 
110701378X
ISBN 13 
9781107013780
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
264
Rating
  • 3.57 out of 5 stars
    7 ratings by Goodreads