Re: Degree of Belief

[Myron Tribus <mtribus@earthlink.net>]

John Dowd's request for clarification of the term "degree of belief" is
related to a debate which appears to me to have subsided in recent
years.  That debate centered on an acceptable interpretation of the word
"probability".  When I became aware of this debate and grappled with the
issue for some time, I finally decided I had to write an entire book
devoted to the meaning of the word "probability".  That book "Rational
Descriptions, Decisions and Designs" (Pergamon 1961) is (deservedly??)
out of print.
If you want to see how that debate has gone, try doing a Google search
on the words "meaning of probability".
I won't go into the substance of the debate -- it has been gone over for
many decades.  
For me, the phrase "degree of belief (about X)"  boils down to "What
probability do you assign to the truth X?"

Myron Tribbus