On the evolution of the concept of probability as a mirror of the evolution of reason
Over the centuries, probability theory has grown from the calculus of games of chance into a central framework for reasoning under uncertainty. This article interprets that evolution not merely as a mathematical history, but as a transformation of rationality itself. From Pascal and Fermat's combinatorial symmetry to the inductive logic of Bayes and Laplace, from Poisson's statistics of events to Kolmogorov's axiomatic formalization, probability progressively incorporated uncertainty, time, and coherence into scientific judgment. This trajectory reaches a mature epistemological form in modern Bayesian inference, especially in Tarantola's view of probability as a logic of information, wher...
| Authors | Jean-Louis Le Mouël, Vincent Courtillot, Dominique Gibert et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 26 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 26 May 2026 |
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