Fifteen arguments against hypothetical frequentism

Alan Hájek*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    67 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This is the sequel to my "Fifteen Arguments Against Finite Frequentism" (Erkenntnis 1997), the second half of a long paper that attacks the two main forms of frequentism about probability. Hypothetical frequentism asserts: The probability of an attribute A in a reference class B is p iff the limit of the relative frequency of A's among the B's would be p if there were an infinite sequence of B's. I offer fifteen arguments against this analysis. I consider various frequentist responses, which I argue ultimately fail. I end with a positive proposal of my own, 'hyper-hypothetical frequentism', which I argue avoids several of the problems with hypothetical frequentism. It identifies probability with relative frequency in a hyperfinite sequence of trials. However, I argue that this account also fails, and that the prospects for frequentism are dim.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)211-235
    Number of pages25
    JournalErkenntnis
    Volume70
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2009

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