The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Paperback)

by James Franklin (Author) "THE LAW OF EVIDENCE is the central in the history of probability..." (more)
Key Phrases: inductive corroboration, factual probability, aleatory contracts, Middle Ages, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Ancient Law of Proof (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...An extraordinary work, a clearly written history of the ideas of evidence and of uncertainty before Pascal." -- —Stephen Stigler, University of Chicago, author of The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Remarkable... Mr. Franklin writes clearly and exhibits a wry wit. But he also ranges knowledgeably across many disciplines and over many centuries... Perhaps the best reason to read this book... is its contemporary relevance... The lessons he discusses have pertinence to an age like ours, which has witnessed 'a gradual waning of faith in the objectivity of the relation of uncertain evidence to conclusion.'." -- Roger Kimball, Wall Street Journal

"Franklin's style is clear and fluent, with an occasional sly Gibbonian aside to make the reader chuckle." -- John Derbyshire, New Criterion

"The Science of Conjecture opens an old chest of human attempts to draw order from havoc and wipes clean the rust from some cast-off classical tools that can now be reused to help build a framework for the unpredictable future." -- Jane Hawkins, Science

"Franklin gives a magisterial acount of matters as diverse as the Talmud, Justinian's Digest, torture, witch hunts, Tudor treason trials, ancient and medieval astronomy and physics, humanist historiography, scholastic philosophy, speculations in public debt, and 17th century mathematics. His treatment of medieval law... is among the best I have ever read." -- James Gordley, International Journal of Evidence and Proof

"This is the intellectual book of the year, and it ought to become one of the great classics of intellectual history." -- Scott Campbell, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

"The Science of Conjecture is a masterly work, beautifully written, and based on encyclopaedic research... It is simply a tour de force that is unlikely to be surpassed for many a year." -- Barry Miller, The Thomist

"Statistics teachers who like to sprinkle a little history and philophy into their classes will find much here to delight and challenge them... This is a serious and scholarly work that I expect often will inform my teaching." -- Richard J. Cleary, Journal of the American Statistical Association

"[This book has given me] sheer enjoyment in its density of strange information, in the wit and clarity if its writing, and in the vigour of its argumentation. I recommend it unreservedly to all interested in its subject." -- Oliver Mayo, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics

"Franklin's book is magnificent... Think of [it] as a non-fiction equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace." -- Peter Tillers, The Jurist

"An admirably accessible study written in a crisp prose. It presents the reader with anarching historical perspective throughout many a century of human action." -- Giora Hon, Centaurus

"The strength of The Science of Conjecture lies in its panoramic exposition of developments across the centuries and across intellectual disciplines and human endeavors. It is, as one reviewer wrote, 'a magesterial account of matters as diverse as the Talmud, Justinian's Digest, torture, witch hunts, Tudor treason trials, ancient and medieval astronomy and physics, humanist histriography, scholastic philosophy, speculations in public debt, and 17th century mathematics.'" -- D. H. Kaye, Law and History Review

"The Science of Conjecture is an extraordinary work, a clearly written history of the ideas of evidence and of uncertainty before Pascal. Franklin has mastered a vast literature over thousands of years, bringing it together in scholarly fashion, fully annotated." -- Stephen Stigler, University of Chicago, author of The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; annotated edition edition (July 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801871093
• ISBN-13: 978-0801871092
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,410 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read on the development of our modern thinking, September 10, 2001

By	T. Donnelly (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Hardcover)

If you read "Sophies World" by Jostein Gaardner and wanted something with more bite, this book is it. It's one of the few truly intellectual books I've read without being academic or boring. I had no idea how much we take certain things in our 21st century thinking for granted. One example is juries and innocence until proven guilty. The book is a marvelous history of legal and ethical thinking and how we came to civilized methods to deal with charges of guilt. It makes me aware of the manipulative power of different styles of logical arguments. Buts it's not only about law. The author explains why Islam is fundamental (God can't be wrong) so why bother considering pros and cons of situations. Christianity was lucky to have the reformation and counter-reformation to challenge why there is probability/chance or unknowing. There are great sections on scientific theory - reasoning for hard sciences like physics and astronomy. Why cannot astrology be a science? Because there are no hard rules; too much depends on the art or experience of interpreters who "explain" exceptions to rules, because so many situations don't follow their rules. The sections on soft science describe biology and medicine, and the impact of clinical trials. How did we arrive at "scientific thinking" to establish proofs? Its all here. I'm not into mathematics and the title sounded so boring to me - mathematics and before the 16th century ie Pascal. If ever there was a case for "don't judge a book by its cover" this is it. Its solid reading, but it is also deeply satisfying and fascinating in understanding a little bit more about how and why we think like do in the 21st century. As an aside the author is also a Latin scholar who translates many texts, correcting false interpretations. But he does it in subtle ways; nothing show-off. James Franklin dazzles us with his humility one moment and superb, accessible writing on complicated subjects the next moment. I never knew that "like" and "probably" were introduced from Greek. Medieval Europeans did not have sophisticated languages that included "like" or "probably" but with medieval enlightment they were introduced. What an impact these two words had. The author corrects cultural misthinking of how poor medieval thinking was. It was an explosion of brilliance in virtually a person's lifetime from 1150-1200. The Renaissance was mild in comparison. This book touches and explains our human development of consciousness and thinking in so many fields eg law, medicine, science, ethics. The author draws on Ancient Greek texts, Roman texts, the Talmud, Jewish philosophers, Islamic philosophers, Christian theologians and even Sanskrit writings. The subjects discussed heavily affect my daily life and thinking. Understanding a little bit of what we take for granted, makes me reconsider glib, slick arguments I'm confronted with in newspapers and television every day. If you buy the book, it's a great read over 1-2 months that can be savored and sipped like a great wine.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily lucid account of abstruse subjects, October 11, 2002

By	R. J. Stove (Gardenvale, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the sort of book whose indispensability creeps up on you: you start it without any idea that you'll require it to broaden your mind, but it insidiously works its magic. Totally unclassifiable -- it mixes the disciplines of history, mathematics, philosophy and jurisprudence -- it also happens to be a rivettingly lucid read, notwithstanding the outwardly abstruse nature of its materials.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Dazzling, September 8, 2005

By	Michael Emmett Brady "mandmbrady" (Bellflower, California ,United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Franklin has done a brilliant job of showing that the concept of probability used by practically all civilizations throughout history[for instance,Hebrew(Talmud),Greek(Aristotle),Medieval(Scholastics),etc.],prior to Pascal's attempt to mathematicalize the meaning of the term probability so as to help out some French noblemen who were trying to find a way to get an edge in certain types of gambling ,was the inductive,qualitative,comparative concept based on recognizing probability as being a primarily nonnumerical,vague concept that could not be precisely defined.Its usage was built into the common languages that human beings developed over time.Franklin's book supports the original logical interpretation of probability first put forth in published form in 1921 in the A Treatise on Probability(TP) by John Maynard Keynes.Keynes's theory is a general theory which analyzes probability from the most general use of the term(qualitative,nonnumerical,comparative) to its most specialized forms(quantitative,numerical,interval,mathematical,statistical,frequency,subjective).There are a few places in this book where the author could have given a substantially better analysis.One place is where he discusses Keynes's concept of the weight of the evidence.He bases his discussion only on chapter 6 of the TP,ignoring Keynes's additional discussions in chapter 14,section 3 and chapter 26,where Keynes became the first scholar in history to both define weight,w,on the unit interval between 0 and 1,and to invent a decision rule,his conventional coefficient of risk and weight,c,which solves a number of the paradoxes of decision theory, as well as a number of the anomalies rediscovered by Tversky and Kahneman.Franklin also fails to point out Keynes's original development of an interval valued approach to probability in chapters 15 and 17 of the TP.The scholar who comes closest to Keynes in incorporating a clearcut role for a vague,comparative,qualitative understanding of probability is D.Ellsberg.