An analysis of indefinite probability statements

John Bigelow

Robert Pargetter

pp. 361-370

in: Synthese 73 (2), 1987.

Abstract

An analysis of indefinite probability statements has been offered by Jackson and Pargetter (1973). We accept that this analysis will assign the correct probability values for indefinite probability claims. But it does so in a way which fails to reflect the epistemic state of a person who makes such a claim. We offer two alternative analyses: one employing de re (epistemic) probabilities, and the other employing de dicto (epistemic) probabilities. These two analyses appeal only to probabilities which are accessible to a person who makes an indefinite probability judgment, and yet we prove that the probabilities which either of them assigns will always be equivalent to those assigned by the Jackson and Pargetter analysis.