We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,604,111.00 | Books Available: 789,259 | Members Online: 299

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense

Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense
Author: Thomas Reid

a selection fromt the introduction: The great merit of Reid?s answer to Locke lay in its immunity from criticism along Hume?s lines. By denying the existence of ideas in Locke?s sense, it entirely cut the ground away from Hume. Reid himself points out that his own doctrine, in one aspect, forms the reductio ad absurdum of the who... more »le ?ideal theory.? Locke starts with minds, ideas, and matter. Berkeley disproves matter and retains minds and ideas. Hume denies the existence of minds and preserves only ideas. And Reid in turn denies ideas. Thus the development of thought has, by a necessary process, led to the destruction of the whole apparatus with which Locke started. Reid therefore resolves to begin afresh, not with hypotheses postulated by philosophy, but with principles guaranteed by common sense. It may have been noticed that in this account of the development of Reid?s thought with reference to his immediate predecessors, two slightly different views have been implied. So far these have purposely not been distinguished. For it is probable that the actual development of Reid?s own views was determined in the way sketched above, partly by direct opposition to Hume and partly by criticism of Locke. It is probable that he was not clearly conscious how far his views owed their origin to criticism of Locke, and how far to antagonism to Hume. But it is worth while to make the difference clear. If we regard Reid?s doctrine as developed mainly by criticism of Locke?s assumptions, it can be shewn that it retains more of the Descartes-Locke assumptions than it denies. In particular, Reid preserves, though he restates, the two-substance doctrine, which was one of the most important elements in the Locke-Descartes Gemeingut. In one aspect, then, Reid may be regarded as Locke purged and Locke re-created. It is only a mild exaggeration to say that Reid?s system is a critical reconstruction of Locke. But when Reid?s work is considered in its direct application to Hume, it assumes a somewhat different tinge. It then appears more closely related to the uncritical appeals to common sense made by Reid?s contemporaries and successors. Reid saw that some of Hume?s conclusions were ridiculous, and he believed that others were impious; and he was apt to assume that their apparent absurdity and impiety supplied adequate grounds for denying them. Reid appealed from the hypotheses of philosophy to the ?principles of common sense.? Common sense secured to him the belief in the existence of mind and matter. From this na?ve dualism was developed his Natural Realism. Such is another view that may be taken of the genesis of Reid?s doctrine. The truth lies somewhere between the two sharply contrasted views. The distinction between them was almost certainly hardly present to Reid?s own mind. But the former is nearer the truth than the latter. It cannot be denied that there is a Reid who in the Inquiry and even in the Essays appeals from philosophy, in the manner of Beattie and Oswald, to vulgar common sense. There is a Reid who condemns a theory by consigning its author to the mad-house. There is a Reid who gets rid of difficulties by simply laughing at them. But this is not the normal Reid. When the normal Reid appeals to common sense, it is an appeal not to blind feeling, but to permanent principles of human nature. He makes an appeal, as Sir William Hamilton has said, ?from the heretical conclusions of particular philosophies to the catholic principles of all philosophy.?1 Further, while it is perfectly true that Reid?s nisus to independent philosophical inquiry was due to his desire to rebut Hume?s conclusions, and while he did criticise Hume directly, he had acuteness enough to see that the only really successful criticism of Hume must be Higher Criticism, in the strict sense of that much-abused term, i.e. criticism higher upstream, nearer the source. ?

ISBN-13: 9781103139163
ISBN-10: 1103139169
Publication Date: 1/28/2009
Pages: 276
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: BiblioLife
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense

Loading...