Further reading

Published

2025-09-01

Foundations of the probability calculus

The four fundamental rules of the Probability Calculus have been at least since Laplace in the 1700s, essentially in their present form. Laplace used them to infer properties of planets and their orbit (with results still valid today). Proof of their logical foundation and necessity started to appear in the 1940s, a formal milestone being the proof by R. T. Cox in 1946. They have been tightened and reformulated in different ways since. Here are some old and recent works on the foundations (as opposed to works that simply mention the rules and apply them). Cox’s and Jaynes’s are probably the first ones to be checked:


Foundations of Decision Theory

Decision Theory is much younger than the Probability Calculus, and its foundations probably still needs to be tightened here and there. Here are old and recent works on its foundations: