Reid and the Philosophy of Common Sense

Reid ’ s Defense of Common Sense

©  P. D. Magnus Thomas Reid’s reply to scepticism involves an appeal to common sense. Since he often claims that no defense of common sense is required, he is sometimes misread as claiming that no defense could be given. Yet Reid does defend common sense. This paper explores how he does so. Before engaging Reid directly, however, I want to consider two ...

Tom Reid meets Tom Bayes: A defense of common sense

Thomas Reid is often misread as defending common sense, if at all, only by relying on illicit premises about God or our natural faculties. On these theological or reliabilist misreadings, Reid makes common sense assertions where he cannot give arguments. This paper attempts to untangle Reid’s defense of common sense by distinguishing four arguments: (a) the argument from madness, (b) the argume...

Common sense, its epistemological and religious usage in Avicenna`s illuminative philosophy

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Democratizing Taste: Scottish Common Sense Philosophy and Elizabeth Hamilton

Common Sense Philosophy and American Political Theology: Preliminary Considerations

A "political theology," as I use the term here, is a society's understanding of its ultimate meaning in the context of reality as a whole, and in particular in light of what is taken to be divine or ultimate reality. Because human beings collectively as well as individually need their lives to have meaning, they will have a political theology of some sort, whether explicit or implicit, whether ...