Abstract:

The concept of probability is, in Hume's cognitive psychology, part of a family of concepts that also includes such concepts as redness, wit, beauty, virtue, and causation. Each is acquired through the activation of a primitive mental sensibility, followed by the formation of an "abstract idea" and its refinement through natural psychological and social pressures resulting in the adoption of a "standard" and "rules for judging." The concept of probability makes possible the further concept of probable truth, which, like beauty and virtue, comes through natural psychological and social mechanisms to function as a normative concept. This way of understanding Humean probability and epistemic normativity has direct implications for understanding Hume's treatment of skepticism.