Synthese

, Volume 163, Issue 3, pp 341–356 | Cite as

Objective Bayesianism with predicate languages

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Abstract

Objective Bayesian probability is often defined over rather simple domains, e.g., finite event spaces or propositional languages. This paper investigates the extension of objective Bayesianism to first-order logical languages. It is argued that the objective Bayesian should choose a probability function, from all those that satisfy constraints imposed by background knowledge, that is closest to a particular frequency-induced probability function which generalises the λ = 0 function of Carnap’s continuum of inductive methods.

Keywords

Bayesianism Objective Bayesianism Bayesian epistemology Formal epistemology Inductive logic Probabilistic logic 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Philosophy, SECLUniversity of KentCanterburyUK

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