Roberts, John T. (2009) Laws About Frequencies. [Preprint]

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Abstract

A law about frequencies would be a law of nature that imposes a constraint on one or more (actual, global) frequencies. On any of the leading philosophical approaches to laws of nature, there could be laws about frequencies. Hypotheses that posit laws about frequencies turn out to behave very similarly to hypotheses that posit corresponding laws about probabilities or chances -- they make the same predictions, provide similar explanations, and are confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical evidence in the same ways. This makes it interesting to consider the possibility of interpreting probabilistic laws from scientific theories as laws about frequencies. This is surprising proposal, but I argue that the resulting view (which I call 'nomic frequentism') is able to overcome all of the standard objections to frequentist interpretation of objective probabilities.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Roberts, John T.
Keywords:	Chance, Laws, Probabilistic Laws, Principal Principle, Frequentism
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics General Issues > Laws of Nature
Depositing User:	John T. Roberts
Date Deposited:	17 Dec 2009
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:19
Item ID:	5058
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics General Issues > Laws of Nature
Date:	December 2009
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/5058

Available Versions of this Item

• Laws about Frequencies. (deposited 29 Jul 2009)
  • Laws About Frequencies. (deposited 14 Dec 2009)
    • Laws About Frequencies. (deposited 17 Dec 2009) [Currently Displayed]

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