Common sense in Thomas Reid

Abstract

This paper explains the nature and role of common sense in Reid and uses the exposition to answer some of Reid's critics. The key to defending Reid is to distinguish between two kinds of priority that common sense beliefs are supposed to enjoy. Common sense beliefs enjoy epistemological priority in that they constitute a foundation for knowledge; i.e. they have evidential status without being grounded in further evidence themselves. Common sense beliefs enjoy methodological priority in that they constrain philosophical theory: they serve as pre-theoretical commitments that philosophical theories ought to respect in the absence of good reasons for rejecting them.

Keywords::

• Thomas Reid
• common sense
• first principles
• skepticism
• epistemology

Notes

^1. ‘It has to be conceded that Reid's discussion of Common Sense is confusing. And not just confusing but confused… I judge it to be, in fact, the most confused part of Reid's thought.’ (Wolterstorff 2001, 218)

^2. Patrick Rysiew makes a similar suggestion in Rysiew (2002, 442).

^3. This is contra Wolterstorff: ‘Reid usually means, by principles of Common Sense, shared beliefs or judgments – that is, propositions believed or judged in common…’ (Wolterstorff 2001, 219)

^4. Thanks to John Stolt for useful conversation on this point.

^5. The two kinds of priority are nicely distinguished and elaborated in Depaul (1986).

^6. ‘The view implies that regardless of what a person happens to believe there is something favorable to be said on behalf of the belief, namely that the person has that particular belief. This is not to say that any belief whatsoever is rational. It is to say, however, that any belief whatsoever as least has some presumption of rationality.’ (Foley 1983, 165) Foley attributes the position to Chisholm, among others.

^7. This seems to be Lehrer's view of Reid on the nature of evidence: ‘Evidence, Reid says, is something that… can be felt more easily than described. It seems, however, to have no common nature… Evidence is what makes us justified in our beliefs. In some cases, those in which our beliefs arise immediately from first principles, we cannot explain the nature of this justification to ourselves or to another… ’ (Lehrer 1989, 114)

^8. Cf. Plantinga (1993), especially p. 50. For a more detailed discussion of Reid on the nature of evidence, see Rysiew (2005).

^9. Thanks to Patrick Rysiew for valuable comments on an earlier draft.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Greco

John Greco holds the Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Chair in Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where he has taught since 2006. He has published widely on virtue epistemology, skepticism, and Thomas Reid, including: Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-theoretic Account of Epistemic Evaluation (Cambridge 2010); Putting Skeptics in Their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry (Cambridge: 2000); and “How to Reid Moore,” Philosophical Quarterly (2002).