Mathematical Probabilities

Abstract

The mathematical theory of probability is not central to the theme of this book but, to clarify the background, it will be useful to review this theory, whose language everyone speaks, and which is now used constantly in all areas of our society touched by science. The historical path, from the first studies of games of chance, to Kolmogorov’s celebrated axioms is marked by debates and controversies. Lesser known are the subjectivist theories (of Ramsey, Savage, De Finetti) which brought epistemological issues to the science of economics and posed the question of where the boundary lies between that which is “economizable” and that which must unquestionably be considered outside this category.