Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-p5m67 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-19T01:48:28.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making Fit Fit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael Townsen Hicks
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reductionist accounts of objective chance rely on a notion of fit, which ties the chances at a world to the frequencies at that world. Here, I criticize extant measures of the fit of a chance system and draw on recent literature in epistemic utility theory to propose a new model: chances fit a world insofar as they are accurate at that world. I show how this model of fit does a better job of explaining the normative features of chance, its role in the laws of nature, and its status as an expert function than do previous accounts.

Information

Type
Laws and Natural Kinds
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 5 , December 2017 , pp. 931 - 943
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arntzenius, Frank, and Hall, Ned. 2003. “On What We Know about Chance.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (2): 171–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, Craig, and Cohen, Jonathan. 2009. “A Better Best System Account of Lawhood.” Philosophical Studies 145 (1): 1–34.Google Scholar
Callender, Craig, and Cohen, Jonathan 2010. “Special Science, Conspiracy, and the Better Best System Account of Lawhood.” Erkenntnis 73:427–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elga, Adam. 2004. “Infinitesimal Chances and the Laws of Nature.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (1): 67–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hájek, Al. 2011. “A Puzzle about Degree of Belief.” Unpublished manuscript, Australian National University. http://fitelson.org/coherence/hajek_puzzle.pdf.Google Scholar
Hall, Ned. 1994. “Correcting the Guide to Objective Chance.” Mind 103 (412): 505–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Leah. 2014. “Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 687–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoefer, Carl. 2007. “The Third Way on Objective Probability: A Skeptic’s Guide to Objective Chance.” Mind 116 (463): 549–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ismael, Jenann. 2008. “Raid! Dissolving the Big, Bad Bug.” Noûs 42 (2): 292–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ismael, Jenann 2009. “Probability in Deterministic Physics.” Journal of Philosophy 106 (2): 89–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, James. 1998. “A Non-pragmatic Vindication of Probabilism.” Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 575–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leitgeb, Hannes, and Pettigrew, Richard. 2010. “An Objective Justification of Bayesianism.” Pts. 1 and 2. Philosophy of Science 77 (2): 201–35., 236–72.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1980. “A Subjectivist’s Guide to Objective Chance.” In Studies in Inductive Logic and Probability, ed. Jeffrey, Richard C., 83–132. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Richard C. 1994. “Humean Supervenience Debugged.” Mind 103 (412): 473–90.Google Scholar
Loewer, Barry. 2007. “Laws and Natural Properties.” Philosophical Topics 35 (1/2): 313–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Richard. 2012. “Accuracy, Chance, and the Principal Principle.” Philosophical Review 21 (2): 241–75.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Richard 2013a. “Accuracy and Evidence.” Dialectica 67 (4): 579–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Richard 2013b. “A New Epistemic Utility Argument for the Principal Principle.” Episteme 10 (1): 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, Frank. 1926/1926. “Truth and Probability.” In F. P. Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, ed. Mellor, D. H., 55–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mellor, D. H. 1928/1928. “Universals of Law and of Fact.” In F. P. Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, ed. Mellor, D. H., 140–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenkrantz, Roger D. 1977. Inference, Method, and Decision: Towards a Bayesian Philosophy of Science. Boston: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thau, Michael. 1994. “Undermining and Admissibility.” Mind 103 (412): 491–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar