Reason and trust in Reid

Abstract

My theme in this essay is the anti-rationalism in Reid's thought. I explore three areas of Reid's thought in which anti-rationalism is a prominent feature: Reid's attack on the Way of Ideas and his own account of how beliefs are formed, in particular, perceptual beliefs, his response to the skeptic, and his understanding of the task of the philosopher.

Keywords::

• anti-rationalism
• foundationalism
• perceptual beliefs
• skepticism
• way of ideas

Notes

^1. Benjamin W. Redekop, in ‘Reid's Influence in Britain, Germany, France, and America,’ discusses who was influenced by Reid in these countries; but he does not discuss how Reid was understood. The essay is to be found in Cuneo and van Woudenberg (2004, 313–339).

^2. The comments are to be found in the ‘Introduction’ to the Prologemena. Here are two sentences from the two paragraphs that Kant devotes to the topic: ‘It is positively painful to see how utterly [Hume's] opponents, Reid, Oswald, Beattie, and lastly Priestley, missed the point of the problem [that Hume had raised].’ ‘Seen clearly, [an appeal to common sense] is but an appeal to the opinion of the multitude, of whose applause the philosopher is ashamed, while the popular charlatan glories and boasts in it.’ I am quoting from the translation of Lewis White Beck (1950). For Reid's reception in Germany, see Kuehn (1987).

^3. The standard edition of Reid's works is that by William Hamilton. I will employ the fifth edition, published in Edinburgh in 1858 by Maclachlan and Stewart. Recently Derek R. Brookes has published a critical edition of the Inquiry, published in Edinburgh in 1997 by Edinburgh University Press. I will employ the following system of references: References to Reid's An Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) will be cited by the abbreviation IHM, followed by chapter and section number, followed by page and column in the Hamilton edition, and by page in the Brookes edition, thus: IHM V.ii [121a; B58]. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) will be cited by the abbreviation EIP, followed by essay and chapter, followed by page and column in the Hamilton edition, thus: EIP IV.iii [375b].

^4. Putnam uses the phrase a number of times in (1992).

^5. See Goodman (1978).

^6.Essays on the Intellectual Powers II.xvii (Hamilton edition, 318b).

^7. Reid makes the point often. One of the most vivid passages in which he makes the point is the following: ‘Nature intended them [the sensations that evoke perceptions] only for signs; and in the whole course of life they are put to no other use. The mind has acquired a confirmed and inveterate habit of inattention to them; for they no sooner appear than quick as lightning the thing signified succeeds, and engrosses all our regard.’ Inquiry into the Human Mind VI.iii (Brookes edition, 82).

^8. Wolterstorff (2001).

^9. See, for example, Van Cleve (2004).

^10. Wolterstorff (2001, 96).

^11. One could include the standard view, as to which beliefs are certain for one, in the definition of ‘classically modern foundationalism.’ I have included certainty in the definition but not the standard view as to which beliefs are certain.

^12. To understand this passage, one must realize that Reid thought of what he calls ‘reason’ as having two distinct capacities: the capacity to discern self-evident necessary truths, and the capacity to draw inferences, that is, to reason, to engage in reasoning.

^13. He is not putting reason understood as the apprehension of self-evident necessary truths ‘in its place.’ Reid never doubts the importance of reason so understood.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Nicholas Wolterstorff is Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University, and Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia. He is the author of Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology (Cambridge, 2001).