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Probability Kinematics and Commutativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Carl G. Wagner
Carl G. Wagner*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee
*
Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Mathematics, 121 Ayres Hall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996–1300; wagner@math.utk.edu.
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Abstract

The so-called “non-commutativity” of probability kinematics has caused much unjustified concern. When identical learning is properly represented, namely, by identical Bayes factors rather than identical posterior probabilities, then sequential probability-kinematical revisions behave just as they should. Our analysis is based on a variant of Field's reformulation of probability kinematics, divested of its (inessential) physicalist gloss.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , June 2002 , pp. 266 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Research supported by the National Science Foundation (SES—9984005).

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