Classical Probability in the Enlightenment [Paperback]

Lorraine Daston (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 069100644X | ISBN-13: 978-0691006444 | Publication Date: October 16, 1995

What did it mean to be reasonable in the Age of Reason? Classical probabilists from Jakob Bernouli through Pierre Simon Laplace intended their theory as an answer to this question--as "nothing more at bottom than good sense reduced to a calculus," in Laplace's words. In terms that can be easily grasped by nonmathematicians, Lorraine Daston demonstrates how this view profoundly shaped the internal development of probability theory and defined its applications.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The reader feels like a twentieth-century observer set down to eavesdrop on erudite philosophical arguments on miracles and the problem of induction, and thence to wander through the streets of Europe observing lotteries, peeping inside assurance offices, and finally perhaps to witness a murderer fleeing the scene of his crime. . . . Although the Age of Reason may have turned out to be a disappointment to the probabilists of that age, Daston has provided us with an excellent history of their ideas. -- Mary S. Morgan, The Times Higher Education Supplement



This book presents a comprehensive, insightful survey of the history of probability, both in terms of its scientific and its social uses. . . . It represents a substantial contribution not only to the history of probability but also to our understanding of the Enlightenment in general. -- Joseph W. Dauben, American Scientist



Daston's book is great fun to read because of its variety of well-chosen topics, thoughtfully interpreted and presented in wonderfully rich language. She . . . displays an impressive independence from conventional approaches to [the history of probability]. -- Ivo Schneider, American Historical Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 451 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (October 16, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 069100644X
• ISBN-13: 978-0691006444
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How are ancestors thought about chance, March 24, 2005

By 

Charles E. Nydorf (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Classical Probability in the Enlightenment (Paperback)

The word 'page-turner' doesn't automatically come to mind when the subject is the history of some branch of mathematics, particularly if you are, like me, not a mathematician. Yet I found Lorraine Daston's book compulsively readable. She covers a period from about 1650 and 1840 when the basic principles and applications of the theory of probability were being discovered. While its disoverers came up with many ideas that we still regard as valid today, they also had many ideas that seem pretty crazy. It was widely believed, for example, that the probability calculus could be used to compute guilt or innocence in criminal cases.
The author explains this paradox by showing that the great probabilists of this shared the idea that there was such a thing as a rational person (they would have said 'rational man') and that it is possible to know what this rational person is like. They defined probability as rational expectation and defined rational expectation as the beliefs of a rational person.
By the 1840', it was recognized that the idea of a rational person was not an adequate foundation for the theory of probability. Probability was redefined as being either the frequency with which events occur or the subjective level of confidence that people have that an event will occur where this level of confidence has no rational foundation.
The book ends with the discrediting of the interpretation of probability as rational expectation. But this idea has undergone a revival in the last 20 years (the Bayesian revolution). That story would make an interesting sequel to the events described in the book.