Abstract EN:

In the 1654-1713 period, modern probability emerged simoustaneously from the calculations on games of chances and their applications to business and law; as well as from the calculations and tables concerning large collections of data as in mortality tables; and from the philosophical and theological concept of qualitative probability, as herited from Aristotle and Aquinas and revised by the Jesuit casuists. The standard solution of the division problem discovered in 1654 by Pascal and Fermat allowed the idea of quantifying uncertainty, and after fifty years of difficulties in conceptualisation, shifted from a theological doctrine of probability to a mathematical theory of probabilities. At first an instrument to support a rational decision under uncertainty, it progressively became a tool of epistemic measurement of belief, an objective measure of uncertainty and a new logic against the progress of septicism. This enlightens modern discussions on the nature of probability.