New Perspectives on (Some Old) Problems of Frequentist Statistics Frequentist Statistics as a Theory of Inductive Inference1

The philosophical foundations of statistics may be regarded as the study of the epistemological, conceptual and logical problems revolving around the use and interpretation of statistical methods, broadly conceived. As with other domains of philosophy of science, work in statistical science progresses largely without worrying about “philosophical foundations.” Nevertheless, even in statistical practice, debates about the different approaches to statistical analysis may influence and be influenced by general issues of the nature of inductive-statistical inference, and thus are concerned with foundational or philosophical matters. Even those who are largely concerned with applications are often interested in identifying general principles that underlie and justify the procedures they have come to value on relatively pragmatic grounds. At one level of analysis at least, statisticians and philosophers of science ask many of the same questions.