Common sense

Abstract: This is Thomas Reid's greatest work. It covers far more philosophical ground than the earlier, more popular Inquiry. The Intellectual Powers and its companion volume, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, constitute the fullest, most original presentation of the philosophy of Common Sense. In the process, Reid provides acutely critical discussions of an impressive array of thinkers but especially of David Hume. In Reid's eyes, Hume had driven a deep tendency in modern philosophy to its ultimate conclusions by creating a phantom-world of so-called 'ideas' that sprang from objects of observation; the self was a conglomeration of perceived ideas; and the will as the source of action was nothing but the balance of passionate impulses. Reid's Common Sense philosophy answers these problems by suggesting that sceptics, such as Hume, unavoidably affirm what they purport to deny, namely the existence of a stable external world, of other minds, of the continuity of their own minds, and of their own and other people's ability to ascribe and accept responsibility for actions. We can understand all of this by proper empirical observation and philosophical analysis of the activity of the mind. Reid's major positive contribution to philosophy is a detailed account of the various innate powers of the mind. While particularly influential in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reid's work has retained a significant role in philosophy, not least in recent years. At the same time, his role in the Scottish Enlightenment is becoming much better understood. This is the only properly established text. It is accompanied by manuscript lectures on the nature and immortality of the soul, as well as helpful editorial annotation and introduction, making it useful to a wide variety of readers. Features * Accurate, reliable and critically established text * The Introduction explains the work's genesis and its place in Reid's system * Annotations provide an understanding of Reid's context * An Appendix contains manuscript material covering an important topic not represented in the hitherto published work

Abstract: 1. The Epistemology of Conditionals 2. A Defense of Dogmatism 3. Rational Agnosticism and Degrees of Belief 4. Probability and Prodigality 5. Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition 6. Easy Knowledge, Transmission Failure, and Empiricism 7. Why Philosophy Can Overturn Common Sense 8. Could Evolution Explain Our Reliability about Logic? 9. Can Selection Effects on Experience Influence its Rational Role? SYMPOSIUM 10. Knowledge as a Mental State 11. What Does Knowledge Explain? 12. Knowledge, Causal Explanation, and Teleology 13. Is Knowledge a Non-Composite Mental State? Index

Abstract: “Neither common sense nor science can proceed without departing from the strict consideration of what is actual in experience.” This statement by A. N. Whitehead is at the foundation of his analysis of the Organization of Thought.1 Even the thing perceived in everyday life is more than a simple sense presentation.2 It is a thought object, a construct of a highly complicated nature, involving not only particular forms of time-successions in order to constitute it as an object of one single sense, say of sight,3 and of space relations in order to constitute it as a sense-object of several senses, say of sight and touch,4 but also a contribution of imagination of hypothetical sense presentations in order to complete it.5 According to Whitehead, it is precisely the last-named factor, the imagination of hypothetical sense presentation, “which is the rock upon which the whole structure of common-sense thought is erected” 6 and it is the effort of reflective criticism “to construe our sense presentation as actual realization of the hypothetical thought object of perceptions.” 7 In other words, the so-called concrete facts of common-sense perception are not so concrete as it seems.