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This volume sheds new light on the multifarious personality of Bruno de Finetti and his outstanding contributions not only to probability and statistics, but also to economics and philosophy. Rather than focusing on de Finetti's technical work on probability, the essays collected here address the philosophy underpinning all of de Finetti's writings, a view Richard Jeffrey labelled "radical probabilism". Special attention is devoted to de Finetti's ideas on economics, which are inspired by the same philosophical approach, while an effort is made to highlight some lesser known aspects of de Finetti's production. The volume ends with an Appendix on de Finetti's book L'invenzione della verit (The invention of truth), written in 1934 and published in 2006, which contains an extensive presentation of de Finetti's philosophical viewpoint, revolving around the idea that our knowledge is the product of human thought, which in such enterprise is guided by considerations of utility, rather than metaphysical principles.
The primary objective of this volume is to describe the impact of Professor Bruno de Finetti's contributions on statistical theory and practice, and to provide a selection of recent and applied research in Bayesian statistics and econometrics. Included are papers (all previously unpublished) from leading econometricians and statisticians from several countries. Part I of this book relates most directly to de Finetti's interests whilst Part II deals specifically with the implications of the assumption of finitely additive probability. Parts III & IV discuss applications of Bayesian methodology in econometrics and economic forecasting, and Part V examines assessment of prior parameters in spec...
This book provides an introduction to elementary probability and to Bayesian statistics using de Finetti's subjectivist approach. One of the features of this approach is that it does not require the introduction of sample space – a non-intrinsic concept that makes the treatment of elementary probability unnecessarily complicate – but introduces as fundamental the concept of random numbers directly related to their interpretation in applications. Events become a particular case of random numbers and probability a particular case of expectation when it is applied to events. The subjective evaluation of expectation and of conditional expectation is based on an economic choice of an acceptable bet or penalty. The properties of expectation and conditional expectation are derived by applying a coherence criterion that the evaluation has to follow. The book is suitable for all introductory courses in probability and statistics for students in Mathematics, Informatics, Engineering, and Physics.
Truth and probability; Foresight: its logical laws, its subjective sources; The bases of probability; Subjective probability as the measure of a non-measurable set; The elicitation of personal probabilities; Probability: beware of falsifications; Probable knowledge.
This volume brings together a collection of essays on the history and philosophy of probability and statistics by one of the eminent scholars in these subjects. Written over the last fifteen years, they fall into three broad categories. The first deals with the use of symmetry arguments in inductive probability, in particular, their use in deriving rules of succession. The second group deals with three outstanding individuals who made lasting contributions to probability and statistics in very different ways: Frank Ramsey, R.A. Fisher, Alan Turing, and Abraham de Moivre. The last group of essays deals with the problem of "predicting the unpredictable."
This relatively nontechnical book is the first account of the history of statistics from the Fisher revolution to the computer revolution. It sketches the careers, and highlights some of the work, of 65 people, most of them statisticians. What gives the book its special character is its emphasis on the author's interaction with these people and the inclusion of many personal anecdotes. Combined, these portraits provide an amazing fly-on-the-wall view of statistics during the period in question. The stress is on ideas and technical material is held to a minimum. Thus the book is accessible to anyone with at least an elementary background in statistics.
This is an authoritative collection of papers addressing the key challenges that face the Bayesian interpretation of probability today. The volume includes important criticisms of Bayesian reasoning and gives an insight into some of the points of disagreement amongst advocates of the Bayesian approach. It will be of interest to graduate students, researchers, those involved with the applications of Bayesian reasoning, and philosophers.