On individual risk

Philip Dawid

pp. 3445-3474

in: Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem (ed), New thinking about scientific realism, Synthese 194 (9), 2017.

Abstract

We survey a variety of possible explications of the term “Individual Risk.” These in turn are based on a variety of interpretations of “Probability,” including classical, enumerative, frequency, formal, metaphysical, personal, propensity, chance and logical conceptions of probability, which we review and compare. We distinguish between “groupist” and “individualist” understandings of probability, and explore both “group to individual” and “individual to group” approaches to characterising individual risk. Although in the end that concept remains subtle and elusive, some pragmatic suggestions for progress are made.