Bruno de Finetti is widely regarded as the leading 20th century statistical thinker about Bayesian ideas. A number of issues which he raised are still matters of controversy among Bayesians: e. g. interval valued probabilities and related issues of imprecision and indeterminacy; resiliency as a hallmark of the subjectivist substitute for objective chance. De Finetti's work played a critical role in the development of work in this area primarily through the intermediary of L. J. Savage in the 1950's and later through translations of several of his works by Kyburg and Smokler in the 1960's. Professor Jeffrey, with several Italian collaborators, has completed an English language translation of de Finetti's early seminal work, "Probabilismo," or "Critical Essay on the Theory of Probability and on the Value of Science" (1931). Under this grant Professor Jeffrey will prepare a long interpretive/critical essay outlining the importance of "Probabilismo" and relating it to the development of contemporary developments in subjective probability. This 1931 study is a detailed philosophical exposition of the probabilistic epistemology that motivated de Finetti's work on the foundations of probability and statistics over the next half-century. It presents his subjectivism in the framework of a close critical survey of other views, carefully qualifying the relationship of his position to other contemporary philosophical stances: pragmatism, positivism, etc. It is of considerable systematic and historical interest, e.g., for its treatment of such topics as resiliency, objectivity, and indeterminacy vs. inaccuracy of probability judgements, and for the extreme projectivism on which de Finetti takes his stand. Professor Jeffrey's critical essay will place de Finetti's views in a much needed historical and philosophical perspective. His essay coupled with the English translation of "Probabilismo" promise to be of great interest within the philosophy of science and statistics communities.
