Chance in the World

Carl Hoefer studied Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Physics at Stanford University, supervised by Nancy Cartwright and Peter Galison. From 1991 to 1998 he taught at the University of California, Riverside; from 1998 - 2002 at the London School of Economics; and since 2002 he has been an ICREA Research Professor in Barcelona. He is interested in understanding the metaphysics of the natural world.

• Analytic Table of ContentsList of BoxesIntroductionChapter 1: Metaphysical Preliminaries1.1 Humean Objective Chance (HOC): a first sketch1.2 The Humean Mosaic1.3 The Dialectics of primitive chance1.4 Chance as hypothetical infinite-run frequency: Propensities made respectable?1.5 Summing UpChapter 2: From Lewisian Chance to Humean chance2.1 PP2.2 Time and Chance2.3 Lewis' Best System Analysis of laws and chance2.4 Chance and Determinism2.5 Chance credence2.6 Summing UpChapter 3: Humean Objective Chance3.1 The basic features3.2 Examples3.3 The Best System of Chances3.4 More about the contents of the Best System3.5 Summing UpChapter 4: Deducing the Principal Principle4.1 Deducing the reasonableness of PP4.2 PP and the epistemology of HOC4.3 Other accounts and PP4.4 Summing UpChapter 5: Undermining5.1 Undermining - what is it?5.2 Is the contradiction real?5.3 The Lewis-Hall solution5.4 Independence for Humeans5.5 The NP solution redeemed5.6 Summing UpChapter 6: Macro-level and Micro-level Chances6.1 A Chance for all Setups?6.2 Epistemology of micro-derived chances6.3 Micro-derived chances and PP6.4 Summing UpChapter 7: Humean Chance in Physics7.1 Introduction7.2 Classical Statistical Mechanics7.3 Quantum Chances7.4 Summing UpChapter 8: Chance and Causation8.1 A reductive relation?8.2 Bob's great presentation8.3 The Cause-Credence Principle8.4 More on causationClosing remarksBibliography