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Emergent Chance

List, Christian and Pivato, Marcus (2015) Emergent Chance. Philosophical Review, 124 (1). pp. 119-152.

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Abstract

We offer a new argument for the claim that there can be non-degenerate objective chance in a deterministic world. Using a formal model of the relationship between different levels of description of a system, we show how objective chance at a higher level can coexist with its absence at a lower level. Unlike previous arguments for the level-specificity of chance, our argument shows, in a precise sense, that higher-level chance does not collapse into epistemic probability, despite higher-level properties supervening on lower-level ones. We show that the distinction between objective chance and epistemic probability can be drawn, and operationalized, at every level of description. There is, therefore, not a single distinction between objective and epistemic probability, but a family of such distinctions.


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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
List, Christian
Pivato, Marcus
Keywords: Objective chance, epistemic probability, determinism, indeterminism, emergence, levels of description, non-reductive physicalism
Subjects: General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
General Issues > Reductionism/Holism
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Depositing User: Christian List
Date Deposited: 26 Feb 2015 18:24
Last Modified: 26 Feb 2015 18:24
Item ID: 11342
Journal or Publication Title: Philosophical Review
Official URL: http://philreview.dukejournals.org/content/124/1/1...
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1215/00318108-2812670
Subjects: General Issues > Determinism/Indeterminism
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
General Issues > Reductionism/Holism
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Date: January 2015
Page Range: pp. 119-152
Volume: 124
Number: 1
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11342

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