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Full Idea
There is hardly any history of probability to record before Pascal (1654), and the whole subject is very well understood after Laplace (1812).
Gist of Idea
Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812
Source
Ian Hacking (The Emergence of Probability [1975], Ch.1)
Book Ref
Hacking,Ian: 'The Emergence of Probability' [CUP 1975], p.1
A Reaction
An interesting little pointer on the question of whether the human race is close to exhausting all the available intellectual problems. What then?
| 7447 | Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking] |
| 7448 | Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking] |
| 7459 | Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking] |
| 7449 | Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking] |
| 7450 | In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking] |
| 7451 | Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking] |
| 7452 | An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG] |
| 7454 | Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking] |