Mr. Bayes and the classics: a suggested interpretation

Abstract

The main hypothesis about Thomas Bayes’s intentions to write his famous {\it Essay} on probability is that he wanted to refute the arguments of David Hume against the reliability of the occurrence of miracles, published in 1748. In this paper we argue that it was not Bayes’s intention to rebut Hume but that his interest on the ``inverse problem'' came about as result of his study of the second edition of Abraham De Moivre’s book, {\it The Doctrine of Chances}, published in 1738. A possible communication of Bayes’s breakthrough might have annoyed De Moivre, leading to a response written for Bayes in the third edition of De Moivre’s book, published in 1756. Among other points, the response claims that De Moivre was the first to solve the mentioned inverse problem. Under this perspective Richard Price’s letter, written as preface to Bayes’s essay, has a new interpretation, appearing also as a defense of Bayes premiership on a satisfactory or proper solution.