Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T04:49:56.072Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reference Class

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Henry E. Kyburg Jr.
Henry E. Kyburg Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The University of Rochester
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The system presented by the author in The Logical Foundations of Statistical Inference (Kyburg 1974) suffered from certain technical difficulties, and from a major practical difficulty; it was hard to be sure, in discussing examples and applications, when you had got hold of the right reference class. The present paper, concerned mainly with the characterization of randomness, resolves the technical difficulties and provides a well structured framework for the choice of a reference class. The definition of randomness that leads to this framework is simplified and clarified in a number of respects. It resolves certain puzzles raised by S. Spielman and W. Harper in their contributions to Profiles: Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. and Isaac Levi (R. Bogdan (ed.) 1982).

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 1983 , pp. 374 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1983

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.)

References

Dempster, A. (1968), “A Generalization of Bayesian Inference”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series B, 30: 205–247.10.1111/j.2517-6161.1968.tb00722.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harper, W. (1982), “Kyburg on Direct Inference”, in Bogdan, R. (ed.), Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. and Isaac Levi. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Kyburg, H. (1974), The Logical Foundations of Statistical Inference. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, I. (1981), “Direct Inference and Confirmational Conditionalization”, Philosophy of Science 48: 532–552.10.1086/289020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidenfeld, T. (1978), “Direct Inference and Inverse Inference”, The Journal of Philosophy 75: 709–797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafer, G. (1976), A Mathematical Theory of Evidence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spielman, S. (1980), “Seidenfeld's Critique of Kyburgian Statistics”, The Journal of Philosophy 77: 791–797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar