States and Eventualities: How to Understand Savage Without Anyone Being Hanged
Abstract
We discuss the notion of a state of the world in axiomatic decision theory, and argue that it should be viewed as an "eventuality" that is implicitly assumed to be independent of the process by which prefer- ences are observed. The distinction between states, which are assumed to resolve all uncertainty, and eventualities suggests certain limitations on the axiomatic approach for defining and measuring mental concepts (such as belief ) by observed choices