Operationism, Probability and Quantum Mechanics

Maria Carla Galavotti
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Maria Carla Galavotti: University of Trieste, Department of Philosophy

A chapter in Topics in the Foundation of Statistics, 1997, pp 99-118 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the kind of empiricism combined with an operationalist perspective that, in the first decades of our Century, gave rise to a turning point in theoretical physics and in probability theory. While quantum mechanics was taking shape, the “classical” (Laplacian) interpretation of probability gave way to two divergent perspectives: frequentism and subjectivism. Frequentism gained wide acceptance among theoretical physicists. Subjectivism, on the other hand, was never held to be a serious candidate for application to physical theories, despite the fact that its philosophical background strongly resembles that underlying quantum mechanics, at least according to the Copenhagen interpretation. The reasons for this are explored.

Keywords: Operationism; Quantum mechanics; Frequentism; Subjectivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-94-015-8816-4_12

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DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-8816-4_12

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