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cc-by-nc-nd (c) Hoefer, Carl, 2016
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/116252

Objective Chance: Not Propensity, Maybe Determinism

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One currently popular view about the nature of objective probabilities, or objective chances, is that they - or some of them, at least - are primitive features of the physical world, not reducible to anything else nor explicable in terms of frequencies, degrees of belief, or anything else. In this paper I explore the question of what the semantic content of primitive chance claims could be. Every attempt I look at to supply such content either comes up empty-handed, or begs important questions against the skeptic who doubts the meaningfulness of primitive chance claims. In the second half of the paper I show that, by contrast, there are clear, and clearly contentful, ways to understand objective chance claims if we ground them on deterministic physical underpinnings.

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HOEFER, Carl. Objective Chance: Not Propensity, Maybe Determinism. Lato Sensu. Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences. 2016. Vol. 3, num. 1, pags. 30-42. ISSN 2295-8029. [consulted: 13 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/116252

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