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XXXVI.—On the Application of the Theory of Probabilities to the Question of the Combination of Testimonies or Judgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

George Boole
Affiliation:
Professor of Mathematics in Queen's College, Cork.

Extract

1. The method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities applied in this paper, is that which was developed by the author in a treatise entitled, “An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities.” The practical object of the paper is to deduce from that method certain conclusions relating to the combination of testimonies or judgments. Beside this, however, it will have a speculative reference to some more general questions connected with the theory of probabilities; and especially to the following question, viz.: To what extent the different modes in which the human mind proceeds, in the estimation of probability, may be considered as mutually confirming each other,—as manifestations of a central unity of thought amid the diversity of the forms in which that unity is developed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1857

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References

page 624 note * Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xxi. p. 375.

page 626 note * Sur la Theorie de la Combinaison dcs Observations. Liouville's Journal de Mathematiques, tom. xv., 1850.

page 627 note * Erdmann's Edit., p. 716.

page 627 note † For some very interesting illustrations of this doctrine, see the letters of M. Bravais, published in the notes to Quetelet's Letters on the Theory of Probabilities.

page 628 note * Vol. xcii. p. 17. Art. Quetelet on Probabilities.

page 628 note † Vol. xxxvii. p. 321, “Letter addressed to J. D. Forbes, Esq., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, on an alleged proof of the Method of Least Squares.”

page 638 note * Cournot, Exposition de la Theorie des Chances, p. 411Google Scholar. De Morgan, , Formal Logic, p. 191.Google Scholar

page 638 note † Formal Logic, p. 195.