Nomic Probability and the Foundations of Induction (Hardcover)

Hardcover. In this book Pollock deals with the subject of probabilistic reasoning, making general philosophical sense of objective probabilities and exploring their relationship to the problem of induction. He argues that probability is fundamental not only to physical science, but to induction, epistemology, the philosophy of science and much of the reasoning relevant to artificial intelligence. Pollock's main claim is that the fundamental notion of probability isnomic--that is, it involves the notion of natural law, valid across possible worlds. The various epistemic and statistical conceptions of probability, he demonstrates, are derived from this nomic notion. Hegoes on to provide a theory of statistical induction, an account of computational principles allowing some probabilities to be derived from others, an account of acceptance rules, and a theory of direct inference. In this book Pollock examines the subject of probabilistic reasoning, making general philosophical sense of objective probabilities and exploring their relationship to the problem of induction. His main claim is that the fundamental notion of probability is nomic -- that is, it involves the notion of natural law, valid across all possible worlds. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…