摘要
古典概率论本质上具有决定论的特征。概率与决定论的结盟缘起于十七世纪以来决定论思想的转向,此次转向发生在形而上学层面,主要体现在二个方面:一是人们相信决定论的适用范围可以极大地拓展,可以将一切现象都纳入到数学的规则之下,包括早期被排除在自然哲学之外的不符合因果秩序的偶然和异常现象;二是将新的内涵赋予了决定论,古典决定论的涵义主要是指"在自然现象中,因果关系的必然性完全对应着数学证明中前提和结论之间的必然性",而新的决定论却包含了在某种程度上可以为人所洞察和把握的偶然性,即以稳定的概率而发生的某些偶然现象或事件。这些信念为十七世纪概率论的产生和发展提供了强大的观念基础和实践动力,十七、十八世纪的古典概率学家们肩负的一个重要使命就是对于偶然和反常的驯服,概率成为这一时期"拯救现象"的重要工具。早期概率的决定论特征在古典概率学家的工作中得到了充分的展现。
In the 17 th century,several natural sciences achieved abundant fruits owing to mathematicization.The triumph of mathematics strengthened the belief in the power of mathematics,and thus stimulated a different determinism with that hold as a part of natural philosophy before.Comparing with earlier determinism,the new one had a broader scope and more meanings.Its broader scope could principally encompass all phenomena of the scientific exploration,including those phenomena previously excluded from natural philosophy such as the rare,the accidental,and the fortuitous.Its more implied meanings were"to penetrate to the stable underlying probabilities that ultimately fixed even the most unpredictable events."This new determinism made‘a mathematics of hazard’(the probability)possible.Therefore,the classical probability theory was endowed with deterministic characteristics essentially,which is fully demonstrated in the work of the classical probabilists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.The classical probability undertook a sacred mission for taming the chance.Probability is an indispensable tool of realizing the new academic ideal of"saving phenomena".
作者
王幼军
高飞
WANG Youjun;GAO Fei(College of Philosophy,Law&Political Science,Shanghai Normal University,Shanghai,200234)
出处
《自然辩证法通讯》
CSSCI
北大核心
2020年第7期55-61,共7页
Journal of Dialectics of Nature
基金
国家社科基金项目“古典概率史研究(1650-1850)”(项目编号:18BSS023)
上海市高校高峰高原项目。
关键词
概率论
决定论
偶然
古典概率学家
Classical probability
Determinism
Chance
Classical probabilists
