A Philosophical Guide to Chance
Physical Probability

An introduction to the philosophy of chance which challenges realist accounts of chance.

Toby Handfield (Author)

9781107013780, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 April 2012

264 pages, 22 b/w illus.
25.3 x 18 x 1.7 cm, 0.68 kg

'This book is remarkably clear and unfailingly accessible, and will undoubtedly have its place on undergraduate reading lists.' J. T. M. Miller, The Philosophical Quarterly

It is a commonplace that scientific inquiry makes extensive use of probabilities, many of which seem to be objective chances, describing features of reality that are independent of our minds. Such chances appear to have a number of paradoxical or puzzling features: they appear to be mind-independent facts, but they are intimately connected with rational psychology; they display a temporal asymmetry, but they are supposed to be grounded in physical laws that are time-symmetric; and chances are used to explain and predict frequencies of events, although they cannot be reduced to those frequencies. This book offers an accessible and non-technical introduction to these and other puzzles. Toby Handfield engages with traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science, drawing upon recent work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics to provide a novel account of objective probability that is empirically informed without requiring specialist scientific knowledge.

1. The concept of chance
2. The classical picture
3. Ways the world might be
4. Possibilities of thought
5. Chance in phase space
6. Possibilist theories of chance
7. Actualist theories of chance
8. Anti-realist theories of chance
9. Chance in quantum physics
10. Chance in branching worlds
11. Time and evidence
12. Debunking chance.

Subject Areas: Physics [PH], Philosophy of science [PDA], Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ], Philosophy [HP]