Thomas Reid

This entry examines Locke's notion of persons and, in particular, his thesis that personal identity is constituted by consciousness. It presents an overview over the most influential readings of this thesis and discusses the most debated interpretative questions and problems about it. I argue that, though Locke's theory of personal identity includes a tension which, ultimately, cannot be resolved, it is nonetheless well-placed to achieve the ethical-theological aim Locke pursues in discussing personal identity.

Öz Bu makalede, bir sağduyu filozofu olanThomas Reid'in kendi çağında yaşamış olan ampirist filozof olan David Hume ve Descartes ile başlayıp Malebranche, Lock ve Berkeley ile devam eden idealist felsefeye karşı cevap verme niteliğinde ortaya koyduğu algı teorisinde görme duyusunun yeri ve fonksiyonları ele alınacaktır. Thomas Reid, derli toplu bir şekilde algı konusunu "An Inquiry into the Human Mind" isimli eserinde ele almıştır. Biz de makalemizde Reid'in bu eserini ana kaynak olarak ele alacak ve Reid'in algı ile ilgili görüşlerinin yanı sıra temelde görme duyusunu ele alış tarzını aktarmaya çalışacağız. Sağduyu Felsefesinin kurucusu olan Thomas Reid, maddi dünyanın olmadığını savunan filozoflara algı teorisi ile cevap vermektedir. Temel tecrübî bir bilgi kaynağı olan algı, başka bir bilgi kaynağına bağlı olmaksızın bilgi ve gerekçelendirilmiş inanç üretir. Algı, bizi kuşatan dünyayı, belli aralıklarda çevreden gelen uyaranların duyu organlarımıza yaptığı etkiler yolu ile tanıma ve kavrama demektir. Algı süreci; algılayan özne, algılanan nesne, duyusal deneyim ve nesne ile özne arasındaki ilişki olmak üzere, dört unsurdan oluşmaktadır. Tatma, koklama, işitme ve dokunma duyumlarının da algılamada etkili olmasına karşın görme, Tanrı bilgisinden bahseden en mükemmel bilgi türüdür. Kendisinde fiziksel anlamda herhangi bir değişiklik olmayan nesnenin ona olan bakış açısına, mesafeye, bulunduğu ortamın şartlarına ve zamana göre göze farklı şekilde görünmesi görünüş ve gerçeklik arasındaki farkı ortaya koymaktadır. Görünüş aslında gerçekliğe zihnimizi yönlendiren bir işaret görevine sahiptir. Zihnin hızlı bir şekilde işaretten işaret edilen nesneye geçmesi kendinde kökleşmiş dikkatsizliğin sonucudur. Farklı mesafelerden ve yönlerden baktığımız bir nesnenin gözümüze farklı görünümler sunmasına rağmen, aynı nesne olduğuna dair kanaatimiz tamdır. Bunu oluşturan ise deneyimlerimizdir. Gözün gördüğü nesne ile ilgili kavrayışında, önceden sahip olduğu bilgilerin yeri önemlidir. Hakkında hiçbir bilgiye sahip olmadığımız bir nesneyi görsek dahi bir algıya sahip olamayız. Duyular, nesne hakkında gerçekte nasıl olduğu bilgisini değil nasıl göründüğü bilgisini vermektedir. Duyular dış dünya ve dış dünyadaki nesneler hakkında tam bir bilgi kaynağı olmasa da dış dünyanın sunduğu görünüşlerin dolaysız bilgisinin kaynağıdırlar. Görünür şekli zihne sunmak konusunda görevli hiçbir duyum olmadığını ifade eden Reid, bunun bizim bilincinde olmadığımız halde maddi izlenim tarafından göze önerildiğini ifade etmektedir. Doğanın görünür şekli nesnenin somut şeklinin ve durumunun bir işareti olarak tasarladığı ve bunu kullanmayı bize içgüdüsel olarak öğrettiği söylenebilir. Reid, gözlerin üç boyutlu görme, paralel hareket etme, nesnenin görüntüsünü retinada ters oluşan resme rağmen düz

Die systematische Diskussion um die Gültigkeit der These von der Unableitbarkeit eines Sollens aus einem Sein ist bis auf den heutigen Tag nicht abgeklungen.  Für unser Thema ist von Bedeutung, daß Befürworter wie Kritiker der sogenannten Sein/Sollen-Kluft immer wieder darauf hingewiesen haben, daß David Hume das historische Verdienst zukommt, als erster die metaethische These von der Unüberbrückbarkeit der Kluft zwischen ethischen Normen und Tatsachen formuliert zu haben.  - In der vorliegenden Magisterarbeit aus dem Jahre 1989, die an der Philipps-Universität Marburg entstanden ist, wird unter Rückgriff auf die zeitgenössischen Debatten, an denen sich Hume beteiligte und zu denen er Stellung bezog, versucht, eine überzeugende Interpretation in Auseinandersetzung mit der modernen Literatur zu entwickeln.

Common sense philosophy was one of eighteenth-century Scotland's most original intellectual products. It developed as a viable alternative to modern philosophical scepticism, known as the 'Ideal Theory' or 'the way of ideas'. The nine specially written essays in this volume explore the philosophical and historical significance of common sense philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment. Thomas Reid and David Hume feature prominently as influential authors of competing ideas in the history and philosophy of common sense. The contributors recover anticipations of Reid's version of common sense in seventeenth-century Scottish scholasticism; revaluate Reid's position in the realism versus sentimentalism dichotomy; shed new light on the nature of the 'constitution' in the anatomy of the mind; identify changes in the nature of sense perception throughout Reid's published and unpublished works; examine Reid on the non-theist implications of Hume's philosophy; show how 'polite' literature shaped James Beattie's version of common sense; reveal Hume's response to common sense philosophers; explore English criticisms of the Scottish 'school', and how Dugald Stewart's refashioning of common sense responded to a new age and the British reception of German Idealism. In recovering the ways in which Scottish common sense philosophy developed during the long eighteenth century, this volume takes an important step toward a more complete understanding of 'the Scottish philosophy' and British philosophy more broadly in the age of Enlightenment.

Thomas Reid's distinction between original and acquired perception is not merely metaphysical; it has psychological and phenomenological stories to tell. Psychologically, acquired perception provides increased sensitivity to features in the environment. Phenomenologically, Reid's theory resists the notion that original perception is exhaustive of perceptual experience. James Van Cleve has argued that most cases acquired perception do not count as perception and so do not pose a threat to Reid's direct realism. I argue that acquired perception is genuine perception and as direct as original perception. Perception is grounded in a productive and developing relationship between the mind and world.

Three widespread assumptions about the human senses are challenged. These are that we have five senses, that they function independently, and, for the purposes of theorising perception, that vision can serve as a typical sense. These assumptions underlie most philosophical treatments of the senses in epistemology and the philosophy of perception, but they are mistaken.
Contemporary attempts to count senses generally use some combination of four criteria based on sensations, organs, stimulus and behaviour. I examine these criteria and show them to be separately insufficient and jointly incoherent. In particular, the pluralism of physical theory and difficulties with dividing primary from secondary qualities complicate counting according to stimulus, while the other criteria advise large but indefinite counts.
I consider recent proposals defending the traditional count of five based on language use, proprioceptive awareness, and pragmatic utility, and reject them all. The traditional count is best explained on the basis of differences in sensory experience, coupled with easily identified organs, together with a mistaken tendency to separate the perceiver from the world.
Rather than attempting a more critically informed count, I argue that attempts to count the senses are currently based on false presuppositions regarding the individuation of the senses. I show that the traditional sense modalities are complex and do not function separately. This is achieved by considering the sense of balance, whereby the perceiver participates in dynamical relations. Balance is implicit in all perceiving.
Assumptions that cause difficulties in counting the senses are traced to a preoccupation with vision, which is usually treated as a single sense only instrumentally controlled by the perceiver. I point out that understanding seeing has historically been a misguided effort to explain what is seen on the basis of two-dimensional retinal images and a separation of perception from action.
By noting the dependence of seeing on looking, I argue that seeing has been misrepresented in philosophical accounts of perception. What follows is that some of the important problems of epistemology have arisen from attempts to base theories of perception on a false picture of seeing. The philosophical views of Thomas Reid are used throughout to evaluate the modern debates and place them in a wider historical context.

This paper investigates the nature of reality by looking at the philosophical debate between realism and idealism and at scientific investigations in quantum physics and at recent studies of animal senses, neurology and cognitive psychology. The concept of perceptual relativity is examined and this involves looking at sense perception in other animals and various examples of perceptual relativity in science. It will be concluded that the universe is observer dependent and that there is no reality independent of the observer, which is knowable to the observer. The paper concludes by an investigation of what an observer dependent universe would be like and that recognition of an observer dependent world would lead to a more open minded and tolerant world.

Introduction to a section comprising seventeen articles on skepticism in the modern world. Attention is given to historical and cultural background that shaped, and was shaped by, skepticism, including globalization, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

The 18th century project of the' science of mind' assumed that the point of 'criticism' is to improve 'taste'. Hume's essay 'Of the Standard of Taste' was one of the most famous products of this project. Yet it fails to explain hos aesthetics could be normative. This paper argues that a much better explanation, and  a deeper philosophical aesthetic, is to be found in the 'Essay on Taste' by Hume's contemporary critic Thomas Reid.

Ruth Boeker offers a new perspective on Locke’s account of persons and personal identity by considering it within the context of his broader philosophical project and the philosophical debates of his day. Her interpretation emphasizes the importance of the moral and religious dimensions of his view. By taking seriously Locke’s general approach to questions of identity, Boeker shows that we should consider his account of personhood separately from his account of personal identity over time. On this basis, she argues that Locke endorses a moral account of personhood, according to which persons are subjects of accountability, and that his particular thinking about moral accountability explains why he regards sameness of consciousness as necessary for personal identity over time. In contrast to some neo-Lockean views about personal identity, Boeker argues that Locke’s account of personal identity is not psychological per se, but rather his underlying moral, religious, metaphysical, and epistemic background beliefs are relevant for understanding why he argues for a consciousness-based account of personal identity. Taking his underlying background beliefs into consideration not only sheds light on why many of his early critics do not adopt Locke’s view, but also shows why his view cannot be as easily dismissed as some of his critics assume.

Philosophy and Memory Traces defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are ‘stored’ only superpositionally, and are reconstructed rather than reproduced. Both models depart from static archival metaphors by employing distributed representation, which brings interference and confusion between memory traces. Both raise urgent issues about control of the personal past, and about relations between self and body.

The book’s historical argument is anchored by a reinterpretation of Descartes’ dynamic physiology of memory and strange philosophy of the body. English critics of Descartes’ view of memories as motions complained that mechanistic neurophilosophy could not guarantee order in memory, and instead sought techniques for controlling the brain. In a new account of 18th-century philosophers’ fears of confusion in remembering, the author demonstrates the role of bizarre body fluids in moral physiology, as philosophers from Locke to Reid and Coleridge struggled to control their own innards and impose cognitive discipline on ‘the phantasmal chaos of association’. Finally, in a defence of connectionism against Jerry Fodor and against phenomenological and Wittgensteinian critics of passive mental representations, the author shows how problems of the self are implicated in contemporary sciences of mind. The book is an experiment in historical cognitive science, based on a belief that the interdisciplinary study of memory can exemplify the simultaneous attention to brain, body, and culture towards which psychological sciences must aim.

CONTENTS (Download at http://www.johnsutton.net/PhilosophyandMemoryTraces.htm)
1 Introduction: traces, brains, and history
                  Appendix: memory and connectionism

Part I Animal spirits and memory traces
Introduction to Part I: Animal Spirits and Memory Traces
2 Wriggle-work: the quick and nimble animal spirits
3 Memory and 'the Cartesian philosophy of the brain'
                  Appendix 1: nerves, spirits, and traces in Descartes
                  Appendix 2: Malebranche on memory

Part II Inner discipline
Introduction to Part II: Inner Discipline
4 Spirit sciences, memory motions
5 Cognition, chaos, and control in English responses to Descartes' theory of memory
6 Local and distributed representations
7 John Locke and the neurophilosophy of self
                  Appendix: memory and self in Essay II.27
8 The puzzle of survival
9 Spirits, body, and self
10 The puzzle of elimination

Part III 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
Introduction to Part III: 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
11 Fodor, connectionism, and cognitive discipline
12 Associationism and neo-associationism
13 Hartley's distributed model of memory
14 Attacks on neurophilosophy: Reid and Coleridge

Part IV Connectionism and the philosophy of memory
Introduction to Part IV: connectionism and the philosophy of memory
15 Representations, realism, and history
16 Attacks on traces
17 Order, confusion, remembering

References
Index

Although famous for his repeated claim that there are innumerable natural beliefs we hold without any reason, Reid gives us the means to make a new appraisal of track-record arguments tailored to show the truth of the first principles of common sense. We do not expect him on this field, because of the " epistemic circularity " that infects any argument of this kind. Reid enters the arena when he attempts to answer the skeptic who asks him how he knows the principles of knowledge that he points out are " truly such. " Although fully aware of the epistemic circularity involved in this request, it is striking that he considers as useful the arguments that attempt to support these principles. The question is to know how Reid reconciles the fact that we immediately know them, with the fact that we may be compelled to defend them.

Looking back at the early thought of parliamentary reform pioneer Major John Cartwright (1740-1824) in an essay of 1812, Samuel Taylor Coleridge contended that no-one could ‘have more nakedly or emphatically identified the foundations of Government in the concrete with those of religion and morality in the abstract.’

Indeed, Cartwright himself repeatedly stated that moral and religious considerations formed the fundamental basis of his political perspective. From his early statement, made in a letter of 1775, that ‘the principles on which politics are built, are the principles of reason, morality, and religion, applied to the concerns of large communities,’ he repeatedly asserted, throughout his career, that all temporal ‘rules of prudence and policy’ depended for their validity upon their being ‘strictly just and perfectly consonant with morality and religion.’

It is the fundamental contention of this article that Cartwright’s ideas are only comprehensible if we take these statements seriously and place his arguments within the context of eighteenth-century debates about the nature of moral knowledge, as well as considering his thought in the light of the broad Dissenting and Anglican latitudinarian tradition of rational religion.

This starting point for this monograph study is what intellectual historians such as Leslie Stephen and Élie Halévy once registered as a quietening of epistemological debate in Britain between Hume and the Romantics. I argue that this quelling of philosophical discourse signals not a hiatus, but a paradigm-shift away from epistemology, involving a corresponding change in genre and vocabulary. In The Testimony of Sense I explore the ways in which this philosophical realignment (the ‘socialisation’ of British empiricism) affects the development of a literary genre (the familiar essay), thereby producing a remarkable turn in the relationship between philosophy and literature between the middle of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.

Nicholas Wolterstorff suggests that there are strikingly 'Reidian' elements in Bavinck's epistemology -this seems to be in tension with how other interpreters have recently posited that Bavinck's contribution in the area of epistemology is precisely in his critical (and decidedly post-Kantian) articulation of realism. However, such observations are made without a more substantial analysis of the texts in which Bavinck is clearest about the matter. With a growing interest in the diversity of the Reformed tradition in relation to modernity and the considerable attention Bavinck is currently receiving, this paper continues these discussions as it probes into the ways in which Bavinck was a constructive theologian representative of the Dutch neo-Calvinist and Reformed tradition working within modernity.

The role of epistemology in philosophy of religion has transformed the subdiscipline by diverting questions away from traditional metaphysical issues and toward concerns about justification and warrant. Leaders responsible for these changes, including Plantinga, Alston and Draper, use methods and arguments from Scottish Enlightenment figures. In general theists use and cite techniques pioneered by Reid and non-theists use and cite techniques pioneered by Hume, a split reduplicated among cognitive scientists of religion, with Justin Barrett and Scott Atran respectively framing their results in Reid’s and in Hume’s language and argument. This state of affairs sets our agenda. First we identify Reid’s use first in the epistemology of religion by Alston and Plantinga, and second in the cognitive science of religion by Barrett and Kelly Clark. We turn to Reid’s texts in an effort to assess the interpretations and extrapolations of Reid given by participants in these debates. The answers to our research questions shed light on what Reid would believe today, were he apprised of the latest research in epistemology of religion and in the cognitive science of religion, which should be of interest to modern schoolmen.

Bu makalede, bir sağduyu filozofu olan Thomas Reid’in kendi çağında yaşamış olan ampirist filozof olan David Hume ve Descartes ile başlayıp Malebranche, Locke ve Berkeley ile devam eden idealist felsefeye karşı cevap verme niteliğinde ortaya koyduğu algı teorisinde görme duyusunun yeri ve fonksiyonları ele alınacaktır. Thomas Reid, derli toplu bir şekilde algı konusunu “An Inquiry into the Human Mind” isimli eserinde ele almıştır. Biz de makalemizde Reid’in bu eserini ana kaynak olarak ele alacak ve Reid’in algı ile ilgili görüşlerinin yanı sıra temelde görme duyusunu ele alış tarzını aktarmaya çalışacağız. Sağduyu
Felsefesinin kurucusu olan Thomas Reid, maddi dünyanın olmadığını savunan filozoflara algı teorisi ile cevap vermektedir. Temel tecrübî bir bilgi kaynağı olan algı, başka bir bilgi kaynağına bağlı olmaksızın bilgi ve gerekçelendirilmiş inanç üretir. Algı, bizi kuşatan dünyayı, belli aralıklarda çevreden gelen uyaranların duyu organlarımıza yaptığı etkiler yolu
ile tanıma ve kavrama demektir. Algı süreci; algılayan özne, algılanan nesne, duyusal deneyim ve nesne ile özne arasındaki ilişki olmak üzere, dört unsurdan oluşmaktadır. Tatma, koklama, işitme ve dokunma duyumlarının da algılamada etkili olmasına karşın görme, Tanrı
bilgisinden bahseden en mükemmel bilgi türüdür. Kendisinde fiziksel anlamda herhangi bir değişiklik olmayan nesnenin ona olan bakış açısına, mesafeye, bulunduğu ortamın şartlarına ve zamana göre göze farklı şekilde görünmesi görünüş ve gerçeklik arasındaki farkı ortaya
koymaktadır. Görünüş aslında gerçekliğe zihnimizi yönlendiren bir işaret görevine sahiptir. Zihnin hızlı bir şekilde işaretten işaret edilen nesneye geçmesi kendinde kökleşmiş dikkatsizliğin sonucudur. Farklı mesafelerden ve yönlerden baktığımız bir nesnenin gözümüze farklı görünümler sunmasına rağmen, aynı nesne olduğuna dair kanaatimiz tamdır. Bunu oluşturan ise deneyimlerimizdir. Gözün gördüğü nesne ile ilgili kavrayışında, önceden sahip olduğu bilgilerin yeri önemlidir. Hakkında hiçbir bilgiye sahip olmadığımız bir nesneyi görsek dahi bir algıya sahip olamayız. Duyular, nesne hakkında gerçekte nasıl olduğu bilgisini değil nasıl göründüğü bilgisini vermektedir. Duyular dış dünya ve dış dünyadaki nesneler hakkında tam bir bilgi kaynağı olmasa da dış dünyanın sunduğu görünüşlerin dolaysız bilgisinin kaynağıdırlar. Görünür şekli zihne sunmak konusunda görevli hiçbir duyum olmadığını ifade eden Reid, bunun bizim bilincinde olmadığımız halde maddi izlenim
tarafından göze önerildiğini ifade etmektedir. Doğanın görünür şekli nesnenin somut şeklinin ve durumunun bir işareti olarak tasarladığı ve bunu kullanmayı bize içgüdüsel olarak öğrettiği söylenebilir. Reid, gözlerin üç boyutlu görme, paralel hareket etme, nesnenin görüntüsünü
retinada ters oluşan resme rağmen düz görme ve iki gözle tek görme yeteneklerinin tamamının Yaratıcımız tarafından yapımıza konulan yasaların sonucu olduğunu ortaya koymaktadır.

Alvin Plantinga, Analitik Felsefe düşüncesi içinde yetişmiş ve bu gelenek içinde teistik din felsefesinin oluşumuna katkıda bulunmuş bir filozoftur. Ayrıca teizmin savunusu için yaptığı çalışmalarla çeşitli üniversitelerden aldığı onur ödülleri ve 2017 yılında kazandığı Templeton Prize ödülüyle haklı bir üne kavuşmuş bir şahsiyettir.  Bu çalışmayı yapmamızda ki en önemli amaç; Plantinga’nın dini epistemoloji üzerine yaptığı çalışmaları analiz edip, bu düşüncelerinin ardalanına dair bir tespitte bulunmaktır. Bu çalışmada yararlandığımız kaynaklar daha çok Thomas Reid’in ve John Calvin’in birinci el kaynakları oldu. Ayrıca onlar üzerine yazılmış bilimsel çalışmalara da atıfta bulunduk. Öte yandan A. Plantinga’nın Nicholas Wolterstorff ile birlikte kaleme aldığı “Faith and Rationality” adlı eser de reform epistemolojisini anlamamız açısından son derece önemliydi. Ayrıca, A. Plantinga üzerine ülkemiz de yapılmış çalışmalara baktığımız da, bu alanda yapılmış ilk çalışmalardan olan Doç. Dr. Ferhat Akdemir’in “Alvin Plantinga ve Analitik Din Felsefesi” isimli eserde araştırmamıza yön göstermesi ve kaynak taramamızı kolaylaştırması açısından son derece önemli bir diğer eserdir. Biz bu çalışmamızda Plantinga’nın epistemolojik ve teolojik fikirlerinin oluşumunda büyük etkisi olan Thomas Reid’in Sağduyu Epistemolojisi ve John Calvin’in Reform Teolojisi hakkında bilgiler vermeye çalıştık. Nitekim Plantinga’yı ve onun fikirlerini anlayabilmek için onun ardalanına bakmamız gerekmekteydi. Öte yandan ilk bölümde sunduğumuz Plantinga’nın biyografisi de onun aldığı eğitim ve yetiştiği ortamı görmemiz açısından önemliydi.

A thesis submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree at the School of Philosophy and Human Science of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and at the Doctoral School of Philosophy of the Université Paris 1  Panthéon-Sorbonne.

This thesis aims to discuss Thomas Reid’s (1710-1796) theory of the first principles of knowledge, more particularly, the first principles of philosophy of mind, morals, and politics. In the first chapter, I discuss Reid’s foundationalist commitments in philosophy of mind, morals, and politics. I argue that he is clearly a foundationalist about speculative and moral knowledge, but it is not clear if he keeps foundationalist commitments with regard to political knowledge – the first principles of politics are not self-evident beliefs: they are not justified from the start and, therefore, they do not have what is needed for being basic beliefs in a foundationalist view of the structure of knowledge. In the second chapter, I discuss Reid’s understanding of the sources of speculative, moral and political knowledge, namely, common sense and knowledge of mankind. I argue that while philosophy of mind and morals are based upon the first principles of common sense – immediate and irresistible beliefs due to the original constitution of mind, politics is based upon first principles of the knowledge of mankind – beliefs that are due to a mixture of the sagacity and the experience of the political scientist who lives among other human beings in a political society. In the third chapter, I try to explain Reid’s comprehension on the first principles of philosophy of mind, morals, and politics. I try to explain what a first principle of knowledge is, how to understand the distinction between the principles of contingent and necessary truths and what the means we have to identify the first principles of knowledge are. The fourth and last chapter is entirely dedicated to common sense. More particularly, I discuss how Reid defends the first principles of common sense from the skeptical attack.

I challenge the primary interpretation of Reid’s epistemology of perception, the most familiar and most important aspect of Reid’s work. Using both his published and unpublished work, I argue Reid holds that the bulk of perceptual knowledge is, in a limited sense, inferential. This runs counter to the dominant interpretation of his epistemology of perception according to which perceptual knowledge is direct and non-inferential. After motivating the study of Reid’s theory of perceptual knowledge, I explain the dominant interpretation. I then argue that there is a paucity of textual and philosophical evidence in its favor, and that there is an abundance of textual evidence against it. In explaining my interpretation, I draw from Reid’s account of perceptual error, his treatment of skepticism and his use of a distinction between original and acquired perception. I explain this distinction in considerable detail, then develop its importance for an analysis of the role of reasoning within perceptual events. Reid’s view is nuanced and prescient in ways that assist him in fending off criticisms that render the dominant view implausible. Lastly, I bring forward and nullify two objections to my interpretation.

Reid reacted strongly to Berkeley's philosophy. He depicts Berkeley as the exemplar the theory on which ideas are the immediate objects of mental activity and presents Berkeley's idealism and immaterialism as instances of the excesses of that theory. Yet Reid's theory of perception reveals that Berkeley had a profound and positive influence on Reid. He follows Berkeley in holding that vision alone does not present us with distance, size, and shape. Those are presented originally only by touch. He also follows Berkeley in holding that a suggestion relation coordinates visible and tangible figure, in opposition to relations such as resemblance, inference, judgment, calculation, or deduction. He adopts Berkeley's explanation of how we perceive tangible figure by sight-by suggestion-but he is not bound to Berkeley's Heterogeneity Thesis, according to which visible and tangible figure are incommensurate. According to Reid, it is both true that visible figure suggests tangible figure and that they are geometrically inter-derivable. Nevertheless, following Berkeley, Reid insists that normal perceivers do not infer tangible figure from visible figure. Rather, our ability to perceive tangible figure by sight is an acquired perception: a perceptual ability acquired through multimodal perception, perceptual development, and perceptual learning.

Skeptisisme terhadap dunia eksternal dan skeptisisme epistemik merupakan dua buah posisi yang tidak dapat dipertahankan. Implikasi dari skeptisisme epistemik adalah R, sebagai proposisi bahwa kemampuan kognitif (​cognitive faculties​) manusia dapat diandalkan, tidak dapat dimengerti, atau inscrutable​, sehingga seorang skeptis akan meragukan segala sesuatu, dan ia, seharusnya, akan bingung terhadap seluruh keraguan dan, juga, keyakinan filosofisnya. Dalam mengatasi skeptisisme terhadap dunia eksternal, seorang filsuf analitik, G. E Moore menawarkan cara memandang yang berbeda terhadap realitas: bahwa manusia mengetahui keberadaan dari dunia eksternal bukan dengan membuktikannya melalui proposisi, melainkan dengan, secara langsung, mempersepsikannya. Sedangkan, implikasi dari skeptisisme epistemik, bahwa tingkat probabilitas yang rendah dari R, dapat diatasi dengan mengkombinasikan filsafat pikiran praktis (​common sense philosophy​) dari Thomas Reid dan G. E Moore: kepercayaan terhadap keandalan dari kemampuan kognitif adalah prinsip yang pertama (​the first principle​).

This is the English version of a paper published in French as 'Les Lumières Écossaises et le roman philosophique de Descartes', in Y. Senderowicz, Y. Wahl eds, Descartes: Reception and Disenchantment, Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 2000, pp. 65-88.
The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by Scottish eighteenth-century philosophers. The Scots' image of Descartes was a by-product of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as implications than the primary focus of interest. As soon as Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and the focus of the discussion shifted from physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge.

Contrary to the widespread view that Reid and Hume agree that reason, alone, is inert, I argue that they disagree on this point. Both accept that reason plays a role in forming moral sentiments, and that affections are components of moral evaluations. However, I show that for Reid moral evaluations (comprised of moral judgments and moral affections) are different from moral motives (which are not comprised of affections). Moral motives for Reid are mind-independent states of affairs that are grasped by reason and do not require affections to influence human beings. Reid hence holds a non-humean theory in which reason, alone, is not inert.

Plantinga’s God and Other Minds, Reformed Epistemology articles, and Warrant Trilogy are all part of the same epistemological project.  Although the project develops in phases focusing progressively on anti-theism, evidentialism, and internalism, the epistemology is consistently a Reidian particularism.  It follows Roderick Chisholm’s famous particularist strategy for finding an epistemic criterion, uses principles of common sense from Thomas Reid as clear cases of beliefs satisfying that criterion, and applies that criterion to belief in God in order to show that this belief is epistemically respectable. Understanding this will help to clarify Plantinga’s philosophical contributions to our understanding of religious belief.

In my article I introduce Plantinga’s epistemological sources, explain the structure of his project, overview its development in these three phases, and correct some misunderstandings of Plantinga that arise from inattention to his Reidian particularism. I also show how Reidian particularism itself suggests an improvement to Plantinga’s epistemology which his critics often recommend: that we recognize that evidence for the existence of God, even if it is not necessary for theistic belief to be warranted, may yet be valuable.

THE DOCUMENT HERE DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME PAGINATION AS THE PUBLISHED VERSION.

This paper traces the ancestry of a familiar historiographical narrative, according to which early modern philosophy was marked by the development of empiricism, rationalism, and their synthesis by Immanuel Kant. It is often claimed that this narrative became standard in the nineteenth century, due to the influence of Thomas Reid, Kant and his disciples, or German Hegelians and British Idealists. The paper argues that the narrative became standard only at the turn of the twentieth century. This was not due to the influence of Reid, German Hegelians, or British Idealists as they did not endorse the narrative, although Thomas Hill Green may have facilitated its uptake. The narrative is based on Kant’s historiographical sketches, as corrected and integrated by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. It was first fleshed out into full-fledged histories by two Kantians, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Johann Gottlieb Buhle. Numerous historians, several of whom were not Kantians, spread it in the English-speaking world. They include Kuno Fischer, Friedrich Ueberweg, Richard Falckenberg, and Wilhelm Windelband. However, the wide availability of their works did not suffice to make the narrative standard because, until the 1890s, the Hegelian account was at least as popular as theirs. Among the factors that allowed the narrative to become standard are its aptness to be adopted by philosophers of the most diverse persuasions, its simplicity and suitability for teaching.

Offering a thorough philosophical introduction to testimony, this is the first comprehensive survey of the epistemology of testimony since Coady's 1992 'Testimony: A Philosophical Study' (OUP 1992); its target audience consists of students, early-career researchers, and established scholars. Special emphasis has been paid to recent research questions, notably also from applied social epistemology (e.g. epistemic injustice, rumor, pathologies of testimony, value of knowledge, social and public trust etc.).

How is it that, as fiction readers, we are nonplussed by J. K. Rowling’s prescription to imagine Ronan, Bane, and Magorian, three different centaurs of the Forbidden Forrest at Hogwarts?
It is usually held in the philosophical literature on fictional discourse that singular imaginings of fictional objects are impossible, given the blatant nonexistence of such objects. In this paper, I have a dual purpose: (i) on the one hand, to show that, without being committed to Meinongeanism, we can explain the phenomenon of singular imaginings of different nonexistents of the same (fictional) kind; (ii) while, at the same time, to attribute this position to Thomas Reid, thus correcting some misunderstandings of his view on imagination.

A paper given at the 2014 BSHP conference on The Common Sense Philosophy. Argues that relations between Hume and his common sense critics (Kames, Reid, Campbell, Beattie) were more complex and interesting than generally assumed. Focusses in particular on the first Enquiry as a response to the kind of criticism that the common sense philosophers tended to make of Hume's scepticism. And argues that the first Enquiry sees Hume make a decisive and self-conscious shift to a peculiarly modern form of philosophical scepticism.

This is a bibliography of the twelve most important Scottish philosophers associated with the common sense school. They are, alphabetically, John Abercrombie,  James Beattie, Thomas Brown, George Campbell, James Dunbar, David Fordyce, Alexander Gerard, William Hamilton, Henry Home Lord Kames, James Oswald, Thomas Reid, and Dugald Stewart.

The notion of common sense has been widely used in everyday speech and had its place within numerous philosophical doctrines in the past. One of the most comprehensive analysis of common sense was done by Thomas Reid. The problem is that Reid’s characteristics of common sense very often differ and that is why they are in most cases confusing. The aim of this paper is to organize Reid’s definitions of common sense and to show where we can find inconsistencies. Emphasis will be placed on distinction between common sense and principles of common sense and if Reid’s doctrine of common sense serves its purpose – to be an argument against the scepticism of David Hume.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to highlight the historical contribution of Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) to the debate over temporal consciousness and in particular to the evolution of the idea of the specious present. This objective is motivated by the fact that only parts of Reid’s analysis of temporal experience are discussed nowadays. In particular, while Reid’s argument concerning the instantaneous nature of perception is often cited, its metaphysical context is not fully appreciated. My point of departure is William James’ own reference to Reid, which occurs in the course of formulating the idea of the specious present in his Principles of Psychology (1890). James’ comment invites a broader perspective on Reid’s analysis since it brings to the fore the preeminence of the idea of duration. It is this preeminence and the experiential immediacy which it implies, that explain Reid’s historical role in the formation of the idea of the specious present.

The paper argues against Hume's account of testimony, and claims that trust in testimony is an autonomous source of knowledge, when the testimony believed is an honest report of something known by the person asserting it. Such trust is the exercise of an intellectual virtue.

Common-sense philosophy is important. It is important because it maintains that we know many things about the world, about ourselves, about morality, and even many things of a metaphysical nature. These important things are at the same time often in some specific sense unexciting or unsurprising as they are truisms, platitudes, things that almost no one in their right mind would deny. However, denying these truisms and platitudes, common-sense philosophers hold wreaks havoc in both our intellectual and our practical lives. At the same time, common-sense philosophy is highly exciting, as these truisms and platitudes give rise to many philosophical challenges. This book traces the history of the concept of common-sense and the roles it was assigned to play in the history of philosophy. These newly commissioned chapters are all written by specialists in the history of philosophy. This book also contains chapters in which contemporary epistemologists, moral philosophers, and metaphysicians in the common-sense tradition explain what they think is the value and power of common-sense philosophy.

Philosophical orthodoxy holds that Thomas Reid is an externalist concerning epistemic justification, characterizing Reid as holding the key to an externalist response to internalism. These externalist accounts of Reid, however, have neglected his work on prejudice, a heretofore unexamined aspect of his epistemology. Reid's work on prejudice reveals that he is far from an externalist. Despite the views Reid may have inspired, he exemplifies internalism in opting for an accessibility account of justification. For Reid, there are two normative statuses that a belief might satisfy, being blameless and having a just ground. Through reflection, a rational agent is capable of satisfying both of these statuses, making Reid an accessibility internalist about epistemic justification.

We commonly think of memories as about the past, and in particular, about past experiences. But John Locke and Thomas Reid present accounts of memory that are very different from this common picture. Locke presents remembering as an activity that may be, but need not be, about the past. His remembering includes recollection, but also contemplation, attention, reverie, daydreaming, and study. Remembering needs past experience because it needs ideas that have been already been formed. But remembering is not directed at the past or mainly about the past. Remembering renews an acquaintance with things already apprehended. But the acquaintance has uses not tied to the past: contemplating a problem, navigating an environment, attending to a story, or planning for the future. Like Locke, Reid holds that remembering renews acquaintance with things already apprehended. For both philosophers, then, remembering requires a past which, for Locke, it need not address. Both Reid and Locke see remembering as releasing us from a persistent specious present that would keep the world always new, yet leave it always alien. Without remembering, the present would stay incomprehensible and the future would remain unimaginable. Remembering makes the world less strange, reestablishing connections to things already experienced, helping make sense of the present, and enabling a vision of the future.

pénultième version -article à paraître dans Philosophia Scientiae) C'est un honneur et une joie pour moi d'être invité à discuter les écrits d'un philosophe qui a eu sur l'évolution de mes réflexions une telle influence, tant au niveau de ses thèses qu'au niveau de la conception de la tâche philosophique. Chacun sait l'importance de l'oeuvre de Pascal Engel au niveau académique international. Ce qui me frappe, personnellement, c'est une qualité philosophique qui n'est pas si fréquente parmi les auteurs de première importance -à savoir, un sens du rôle de l'activité philosophique dans nos sociétés. Engel permet d'aller au-delà de l'alternative désespérante entre une philosophie comme pur jeu intellectuel entre spécialistes et à l'extrême inverse une « philo » populaire qui croit avoir une signification sociale parce qu'elle s'adresse à monsieur tout le monde, mais pour ne lui livrer que du « prêt à philosopher », ou des maximes de vie façon « fortune cookies ». Engel rappelle, et démontre par ses écrits, que le philosophe a un rôle véritable, qui est de promouvoir et développer, notamment chez les intellectuels (ou les « clercs »), le sens de la rationalité et la valeur de la recherche de la vérité. D'un point de vue théorique, Engel a notoirement défendu une théorie de la vérité comme valeur, et une théorie des normes épistémiques en général. Mais il a également mis en pratique cet attachement aux valeurs épistémiques par une activité infatigable de discussion et de critique de ceux, parmi ses contemporains, qui s'éloignent de ces valeurs ou les négligent. Il est pourtant si facile -tant de philosophes le font, et de tous bords -de pratiquer le type de philosophie que l'on préfère sans se soucier de ce qu'écrivent les autres écoles ; mais Engel a toujours montré une disposition remarquable à entrer en dialogue constructif avec ses adversaires pour inviter, voire provoquer, à la rationalité ceux qui seraient trop heureux de pouvoir tranquillement « déraisonner en rond ». A ce titre, Engel offre un exemple dont j'espère que je saurai m'inspirer.

Arendt’s concept of common sense has generally been misunderstood. It
is almost exclusively interpreted in light of Kant’s common sense, either as an
espousal of the latter or as a distortion of it. This narrow reading of Arendtian
common sense has led to a problem, as her uses of the concept do not always fit
its Kantian understanding. This has led to accusing her of being inconsistent, or as
holding on to several, incompatible concepts of common sense.
This article argues that Arendt has one complex concept of common sense, used
more or less consistently throughout her writings. Rather than understanding
Arendt’s common sense in light of Kant’s, as most readers do, I demonstrate its
links to Aristotle and to the eighteenth-century Scottish school of common sense.
By doing so I turn attention to a difficulty that has thus far not been adequately
treated, namely the fact that Arendt presents two, allegedly contradictory pictures
of the relation between common sense on the one hand and science and philosophy
on the other: a picture in which science and philosophy depend upon common
sense, versus one in which they find themselves in a conflict that eventually
leads to the loss or demise of common sense. The last part of the article suggests a
way to settle the tension between these two pictures, by understanding the political
significance Arendt ascribes to them as two distinct yet complementary ways of
approaching the modern phenomenon of totalitarianism.