Role and meaning of subjective probability: some comments on common misconceptions

Abstract

Criticisms of so called `subjective probability' come on the one hand from those who maintain that probability in physics has only a frequentistic interpretation, and, on the other, from those who tend to `objectivise' Bayesian theory, arguing, e.g., that subjective probabilities are indeed based `only on private introspection'. Some of the common misconceptions on subjective probability will be commented upon in support of the thesis that coherence is the most crucial, universal and `objective' way to assess our confidence on events of any kind.

9 pages, to appear in the proceedings of the XX International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering, Gif sur Yvette, France, July 8-13, 2000. This paper and related work are also available at http://www-zeus.roma1.infn.it/~agostini/prob+stat.html