Counting experiments

Abstract

In this paper, I show how one might resist two influential arguments for the Likelihood Principle by appealing to the ontological significance of creative intentions. The first argument for the Likelihood Principle that I consider is the argument from intentions. After clarifying the argument, I show how the key premiss in the argument may be resisted by maintaining that creative intentions sometimes independently matter to what experiments exist. The second argument that I consider is Gandenberger's (Br J Philos Sci 66(3):475–503, 2015) rehabilitation of Birnbaum's (J Am Stat Assoc 57(298):269–306, 1962) proof of the Likelihood Principle from the (supposedly) more intuitively obvious principles of conditionality and sufficiency. As with the argument from intentions, I show how Gandenberger's argument for his Experimental Conditionality Principle may be resisted by maintaining that creative intentions sometimes independently matter to what experiments exist.