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Lorraine Daston
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Classical Probability in the Enlightenment Revised ed. Edition, Kindle Edition

by Lorraine Daston (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
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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.

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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0691006444
  2. Edition
    Revised ed.
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  5. Publication date
    May 11, 2021
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    2503 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

"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

"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

"Winner of the 1989 Pfizer Most Outstanding Book Award of the History of Science Society"

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, one which has the power to delight and enlighten the reader.”―Mary S. Morgan, Times Higher Education

“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 extends considerably the range of subjects involved in the development of probability theory and so displays an impressive independence from conventional approaches to its history.”―Ivo Schneider, American Historical Review

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08VFCDNFY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press; Revised ed. edition (May 11, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 11, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2503 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 069100644X
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings

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Lorraine Daston

Lorraine Daston

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Customer reviews

5 out of 5 stars
5 out of 5
4 global ratings

Top review from the United States

Charles E. Nydorf
5.0 out of 5 stars How are ancestors thought about chance
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2005
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.
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