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 other ways in which Reid is sometimes misread. First, Norman Daniels () reads Reid as follows: Reid finds common sense to be trustworthy only because it is given to us by a benevolent God. Trust in common sense thus relies on theological premises, but these are no more secure than the claims that common sense is meant to support. Daniels writes, “Reid’s only defense against the skeptical outcome ... that our constitutions might lead us to systematically false beliefs ... is his belief that God would not deceive us.” Second, Philip de Bary () understands Reid as a reliabilist. Understood in this way, Reid’s position is that common sense is justified because it reliably leads to true belief. Common sense would be justified regardless of whether or why we accepted it, but there is this further question: Why should we believe that common sense is justified? It is justified if it will reliably lead us to the truth, but why believe that? The claim that our natural faculties are reliable is what DeBary calls the Truth Claim. We can assert the Truth Claim, but we cannot give a non-circular defense of it. On both of these readings, the defense of common sense is an argument from explicit, metaphysical premises. We can then ask for a defense of the premises, but none can be given. I argue in what follows that both approaches misunderstand Reid’s defense of common sense. Admittedly, Reid does think that common sense can be trusted and that it is given to us by a benevolent deity. Yet, I will argue, he does