Abstract
An analysis of indefinite probability statements has been offered by Jackson and Pargetter (1973). We accept that this analysis will assign the correct probability values for indefinite probability claims. But it does so in a way which fails to reflect the epistemic state of a person who makes such a claim. We offer two alternative analyses: one employing de re (epistemic) probabilities, and the other employing de dicto (epistemic) probabilities. These two analyses appeal only to probabilities which are accessible to a person who makes an indefinite probability judgment, and yet we prove that the probabilities which either of them assigns will always be equivalent to those assigned by the Jackson and Pargetter analysis.
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References
Jackson, Frank and Robert Pargetter: 1973, ‘Indefinite Probability Statements’, Synthese 26, 205–17.
Lewis, D.: 1979, ‘Attitudes to De Dicto and De Se’, The Philosophical Review 88, 513–43.
Quine, W. V.: 1956, ‘Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes’, Journal of Philosophy 53, 177–87.
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Bigelow, J., Pargetter, R. An analysis of indefinite probability statements. Synthese 73, 361–370 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00484747
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00484747