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Postscript to Richard Jeffrey’s “Conditioning, Kinematics, and Exchangeability”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2022

Carl G. Wagner*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee, 1403 Circle Drive, Ayres Hall 227, Knoxville, TN, US

Abstract

Richard Jeffrey’s “Conditioning, Kinematics, and Exchangeability” is one of the foundational documents of probability kinematics. However, the section entitled “Successive Updating” contains a subtle error regarding the applicability of updating by so-called relevance quotients in order to ensure the commutativity of successive probability kinematical revisions. Upon becoming aware of this error, Jeffrey formulated the appropriate remedy, but he never discussed the issue in print. To head off any confusion, it seems worthwhile to alert readers of Jeffrey’s “Conditioning, Kinematics, and Exchangeability” to the aforementioned error and to document his remedy, placing it in the context of both earlier and subsequent work on commuting probability kinematical revisions.1

Type
Discussion Note
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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