Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum's Early Works: Between Warsaw and Cambridge

Philosophy of Science Colloquium
The Institute Vienna Circle holds a Philosophy of Science Colloquium with talks by our present fellows.

Date: 21/03/2024

Time: 16h45

Venue: New Institute Building (NIG), Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien, HS 3F

Abstract:

In 1931, Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum proposed a proto-decision-theoretic answer to the value of evidence problem, originally posed by C. D. Broad and solved by I. J. Good in the context of Savage's decision theory. As an influence on her paper she credited Frank Ramsey, whose then unpublished "Truth and Probability" (Ramsey 1926) she had read shortly after Ramsey's death in 1930. But Hosiasson also insisted that she had "previously thought independently on similar lines" (Hosiasson 1931, ft. 15). 

This raises two questions. First, what is it exactly that Hosiasson-Lindenbaum took herself to be in agreement on with Ramsey, or what part of her approach has been inspired by his paper? And second: what did she "previously [think] independently"? In the paper, I answer the two questions, drawing on Hosiasson-Lindenbaum's work published before her contact with Ramsey's work, as well as shortly after (and which has not received any attention to date). 

I propose a more minimal answer to the first of the above questions, arguing that we should not read Hosiasson as taking up Ramsey's theory of epistemic probability wholesale. While Hosiasson did use the concept of "mathematical expectation", or expected utility, as a model for how people use probability to inform some of their decisions, she does not connect this to any general view on what probabilities are overall.

This reading is then supported by a detailed analysis of Hosiasson's early works. While Hosiasson's (probably) first philosophical work—her doctoral dissertation from 1926—had been lost, fragments of it were published in two papers (Hosiasson 1928, 1934). The second of those papers was published with a large delay and contains a lot of material that was added after 1931/2. This makes it particularly interesting in the context of this study, since those dates are precisely the cut-off point for Hosiasson's contact with Ramsey's work.