“Probability and Pragmatism”

Pragmatism is both a philosophical movement and a way of addressing philosophical problems. With the exception of Charles Sanders Peirce and Clarence Irving Lewis, pragmatist philosophers paid little attention to the foundations of probability, whereas pragmatism exercised a great influence on a number of authors. In the first place, this holds for the founders of the subjective interpretation of probability, namely Frank Ramsey, who is considered a pragmatist although he had no direct connections with the pragmatist movement, and Bruno de Finetti, who acknowledged the influence of Giovanni Vailati on his own work. In addition the writings of upholders of different interpretations of probability, including like Hans Reichenbach, Ernest Nagel and Rudolf Carnap, disclose similarities with the pragmatist outlook. The paper explores the influence of pragmatism on the debate on the foundations of probability.