scholarly journals A convenient category for higher-order probability theory

Author(s):  
Chris Heunen ◽  
Ohad Kammar ◽  
Sam Staton ◽  
Hongseok Yang
Author(s):  
Andrew Bacon

Hartry Field has recently suggested that a non-standard probability calculus better represents our beliefs about vague matters. His theory has two notable features: (i) that your attitude to P when you are certain that P is higher-order borderline ought to be the same as your attitude when you are certain that P is simply borderline, and (ii) that when you are certain that P is borderline you should have no credence in P and no credence in ~. This chapter rejects both elements of this view and advocates instead for the view that when you are in possession of all the possible evidence, and it is borderline whether P is borderline, it is borderline whether you should believe P. Secondly, it argues for probabilism: the view that your credences ought to conform to the probability calculus. To get a handle on these issues, the chapter looks at Dutch book arguments and comparative axiomatizations of probability theory.


In this chapter, the authors make use of the formalizations of measure theory and Lebesgue integration in HOL4 to provide a higher-order-logic formalization of probability theory (Mhamdi, 2013). For illustration purposes, they also present the probabilistic analysis of the Heavy Hitter problem using HOL.


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