Thomas Reid (1710–96) was a Scottish philosopher, clergyman, and teacher. He originated the school of thought known as the “philosophy of common sense.”
Born into a distinguished family of clerics and intellectuals in Strachan, Aberdeenshire, Reid was educated in theology and philosophy at Aberdeen and became the librarian of Marischal College in 1733. He was appointed Presbyterian pastor of New Machar in Aberdeenshire 1737 and professor of philosophy at Aberdeen 1751. He succeeded economist Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow 1764–80 and later retired to write.
Reid was a leader of the group known as the “Common Sense,” later espoused by the “Scottish” school, in opposition to the skeptical Empiricism of David Hume. Reid reasserted the existence of external objects by denying that simple ‘ideas’ are our primary data.
Reid’s best-known work is his first critique of Hume, Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764.) Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) further extended his criticism of Hume’s epistemology, and Essays on the Active Power of Man (1788) defended the rationalist theory of ethics against a current of subjectivism.
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Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of a man.
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Faith, God
If there is anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in the ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Genius
The sceptical writers are a set whose business it is to prick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was before.
—Thomas Reid
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Acting, Actors
The laws of nature are the rules according to which effects are produced; but there must be a lawgiver — a cause which operates according to these rules. — The laws of navigation never steered a ship, and the law of gravity never moved a planet.
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Nature
There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Words
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation
—Thomas Reid
Topics: Government
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