The foundations of statistics

With the 1954 publication of his Foundations of Statistics, in which he proposed a basis that taken into account not only strictly objective and repetitive events, but also vagueness and interpersonal differences, Leonard J. Savage opened the greatest controversy in modern statistical thought. His theory of the foundations, connected with the personalistic interpretation of probability, challenged the then dominant frequentists school. In the first seven chapters of his book, Prof. Savage is concerned with the foundations at a relativitity, the approach to qualitative and quantitative personal probability, the approach to certainty through experience, symmetric sequences of events, critical comments on personal probability, utility, observations as they affect the decision, and partition problems. In chapters eight through seventeen he discusses statistics proper - the actual devices on the discipline - from the personalistic view. He concentrates on minimax problems and on the theories of estimation and testing. Exercises are included throughout to reinforce and supplement the text. Understaning of all the material call for some mathematical maturity on the part of the reader. -- from Back cover.