Bruno de Finetti

Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist, statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability.

Quotes

Theory of Probability (1970)

• My thesis, paradoxically, and a little provocatively, but nonetheless genuinely, is simply this :

  PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST.

  The abandonment of superstitious beliefs about the existence of Phlogiston, the Cosmic Ether, Absolute Space and Time, ... , or Fairies and Witches, was an essential step along the road to scientific thinking. Probability, too, if regarded as something endowed with some kind of objective existence, is no less a misleading misconception, an illusory attempt to exteriorize or materialize our true probabilistic beliefs.

  • Preface

• Probabilistic reasoning—always to be understood as subjective—merely stems from our being uncertain about something.
  • Preface