The best Humean system for statistical mechanics

Roman Frigg and Carl Hoefer

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Classical statistical mechanics posits probabilities for various events to occur, and these probabilities seem to be objective chances. This does not seem to sit well with the fact that the theory’s time evolution is deterministic. We argue that the tension between the two is only apparent. We present a theory of Humean objective chance and show that chances thus understood are compatible with underlying determinism and provide an interpretation of the probabilities we find in Boltzmannian statistical mechanics.

JEL-codes: C1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Published in Erkenntnis, 2015, 80(S3), pp. 551-574. ISSN: 0165-0106

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:37075

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