• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.23-46
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• 2005

The purpose of the paper Is to discuss and estimate early Popper's theory of probability, which is presented in his book, The Logic of of Scientific Discovery. For this, Von Mises' frequency theory shall be discussed in detail, which is regarded as the most systematic and sophisticated frequency theory among others. Von Mises developed his theory to response to various critical questions such as how finite and empirical collectives can be represented in terms of infinite and mathematical collectives, and how the axiom of randomness can be mathematically formulated. But his theory still has another difficulty, which is concerned with the inconsistency between the axiom of convergence and the axiom of randomness. Defending the objective theory of probability, Popper tries to present his own frequency theory, solving the difficulty. He suggests that the axiom of convergence be given up and that the axiom of randomness be modified to solve Von Mises' problem. That is, Popper introduces the notion of ordinal selection and neighborhood selection to modify the axiom of randomness. He then shows that Bernoulli's theorem is derived from the modified axiom. Consequently, it can be said that Popper solves the problem of inconsistency which is regarded as crucial to Von Mises' theory. However, Popper's suggestion has not drawn much attention. I think it is because his theory seems anti-intuitive in the sense that it gives up the axiom of convergence which is the basis of the frequency theory So for more persuasive frequency theory, it is necessary to formulate the axiom of randomness to be consistent with the axiom of convergence.