On the Three Types of Bell’s Inequalities

Abstract

Bell’s inequalities can be understood in three different ways depending on whether the numbers featuring in the inequalities are interpreted as classical probabilities, classical conditional probabilities, or quantum probabilities. In the paper I will argue that the violation of Bell’s inequalities has different meanings in the three cases. In the first case it rules out the interpretation of certain numbers as probabilities of events. In the second case it rules out a common causal explanation of conditional correlations of certain events (measurement outcomes) conditioned on other events (measurement settings). Finally, in the third case the violation of Bell’s inequalities neither rules out the interpretation of these numbers as probabilities of events nor a common causal explanation of the correlations between these events – provided both the events and the common causes are interpreted non-classically.