De Finetti suggested that scoring rules-namely, loss functions by which a forecaster is virtually charged depending on the degree of inaccuracy of his predictions-could be employed also to provide a compelling argument for probabilism. However, De Finetti's choice of a specific scoring rule for this purpose (Brier's quadratic rule) appears somewhat arbitrary, and the general pragmatic flavour of the argument-which makes it a variant of the well-known Dutch Book Theorem-has been deemed unsuitable for an epistemic justification of probabilism. In this paper we suggest how Brier's rule may be justified on epistemic grounds by means of a strategy that is different from the one usually adopted for this purpose (e.g., in Joyce 1998), taking advantage of a recent characterization result concerning distance functions between real-valued vectors (D'Agostino and Dardanoni 2008).
Epistemic accuracy and subjective probability / M. d'Agostino, C. Sinigaglia - In: EPSA epistemology and methodology of science : launch of the european philosophy of science association / [a cura di] M. Suarez, M. Dorato, M. Rédei. - Dordrecht : Springer, 2010. - ISBN 9789048132621. - pp. 95-106 [10.1007/978-90-481-3263-8_8]
Epistemic accuracy and subjective probability
M. D'Agostino;C. Sinigaglia
2010
Abstract
De Finetti suggested that scoring rules-namely, loss functions by which a forecaster is virtually charged depending on the degree of inaccuracy of his predictions-could be employed also to provide a compelling argument for probabilism. However, De Finetti's choice of a specific scoring rule for this purpose (Brier's quadratic rule) appears somewhat arbitrary, and the general pragmatic flavour of the argument-which makes it a variant of the well-known Dutch Book Theorem-has been deemed unsuitable for an epistemic justification of probabilism. In this paper we suggest how Brier's rule may be justified on epistemic grounds by means of a strategy that is different from the one usually adopted for this purpose (e.g., in Joyce 1998), taking advantage of a recent characterization result concerning distance functions between real-valued vectors (D'Agostino and Dardanoni 2008).Pubblicazioni consigliate
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