Henry E. Kyburg Jr.

Henry E. Kyburg Jr. (October 9, 1928 – November 30, 2007) was an American philosopher and computer scientist. He was the Gideon Burbank Professor of Moral Philosophy and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester in New York, and also served as the Pace Eminent Scholar at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Florida. His earlier academic appointments included positions at the Rockefeller Institute, University of Denver, Wesleyan College, and Wayne State University. Kyburg earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955, studying under Ernest Nagel. His primary contributions were in the fields of probability and logic. He is widely recognized for introducing the "lottery paradox" in 1961. Kyburg also co-edited "Studies in Subjective Probability" (1964) with Howard Smokler. Despite this work, he is often misunderstood as a Bayesian; in reality, his own theory of probability, detailed in "Logical Foundations of Statistical Inference" (1974) and "Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief" (1961), was inspired by Keynesian and Fisherian ideas. This theory offered a logical probability grounded in reference classes, serving as a counterpoint to Neyman-Pearson statistics and remaining neutral regarding Bayesian confirmation. He engaged in extensive discussions on these topics with his colleague Isaac Levi. His later significant works include "Epistemology and Inference" (1983), "Theory and Measurement" (1984), and "Science and Reason" (1990), which addressed the confirmation of scientific axioms. Kyburg was honored with fellowships from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He also received the Butler Medal for Philosophy in Silver from Columbia University and was a Guggenheim Fellow. Outside academia, Kyburg managed a farm in Lyons, New York, raising Angus cattle with his wife, Sarah, and advocating for wind turbine systems for farmers.