Reviving Frequentism

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new form of frequentism called typicality frequentism, grounding probabilities in physical statistical behavior, addressing past criticisms, and clarifying which probabilities can be derived from physics.

Contribution

It introduces typicality frequentism, a novel approach that grounds probabilities in physical theory and explains their empirical relevance while avoiding previous criticisms.

Findings

Probabilities can be derived from statistical behavior of initial conditions.

The approach clarifies which probabilities are physically grounded.

It supports a pluralistic view of different probability types.

Abstract

Philosophers now seem to agree that frequentism is an untenable strategy to explain the meaning of probabilities. Nevertheless, I want to revive frequentism, and I will do so by grounding probabilities on typicality in the same way as the thermodynamic arrow of time can be grounded on typicality within statistical mechanics. This account, which I will call typicality frequentism, will evade the major criticisms raised against previous forms of frequentism. In this theory, probabilities arise within a physical theory from statistical behavior of almost all initial conditions. The main advantage of typicality frequentism is that it shows which kinds of probabilities (that also have empirical relevance) can be derived from physics. Although one cannot recover all probability talk in this account, this is rather a virtue than a vice, because it shows which types of probabilities can in fact arise from physics and which types need to be explained in different ways, thereby opening the path for a pluralistic account of probabilities.