The Cambridge Companion To Thomas Reid

Reid in context / Alexander Broadie -- Thomas Reid and the culture of science / Paul Wood -- Reid on common sense / Nicholas Wolterstorff -- Reid's theory of perception / James Van Cleve / Reid's reply to the skeptic / John Greco -- Nativism and the nature of thought in Reid's account of the external world / Lorne Falkenstein -- Reid and the social operations of mind / C.A.J. Coady -- Reid on memory and the identity of persons / René Van Woudenberg -- Thomas Reid's theory of freedom and responsibility / William L. Rowe -- Reid's moral philosophy / Terence Cueno -- Reid's philosophy of art / Peter Kivy -- Reid's philosophy of religion / Dale Tuggy -- Reid's influence in Britain, Germany, France, and America / Benjamin W. Redekop

This important book will do much to reestablish the significance of Thomas Reid for philosophy today. Nicholas Wolterstorff has produced the first systematic account of Reid's epistemology. Relating Reid's philosophy to present-day epistemological discussions the author demonstrates how they are at once remarkably timely, relevant, and provocative.There is no competing book that both uncovers the deep pattern of Reid's thought and relates it to contemporary philosophical debate. It must be read by historians of philosophy as well as all philosophers concerned with epistemology and the philosophy of mind.

The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment offers a philosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century movement that has been profoundly influential on western culture. A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Colin Maclaurin and other Scottish thinkers, in fields including philosophy, natural theology, economics, anthropology, natural science and law. In addition, the contributors relate the Scottish Enlightenment to its historical context and assess its impact and legacy in Europe, America and beyond. The result is a comprehensive and accessible volume that illuminates the richness, the intellectual variety and the underlying unity of this important movement. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology, literature and the history of ideas.

A comprehensive exploration of the historical development and philosophical importance of common-sense philosophy.

Adam Smith is best known as the founder of scientific economics and as an early proponent of the modern market economy. Political economy, however, was only one part of Smith's comprehensive intellectual system. Consisting of a theory of mind and its functions in language, arts, science, and social intercourse, Smith's system was a towering contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment. His ideas on social intercourse also served as the basis for a moral theory that provided both historical and theoretical accounts of law, politics, and economics. This Companion volume provides an examination of all aspects of Smith's thought. Collectively, the essays take into account Smith's multiple contexts - Scottish, British, European, Atlantic; biographical, institutional, political, philosophical - and they draw on all of his works, including student notes from his lectures. Pluralistic in approach, the volume provides a contextualist history of Smith, as well as direct philosophical engagement with his ideas.

Provides a comprehensive introduction to the full range of achievements of the Scottish thinkers who so profoundly influenced western culture.

Thomas Reid (1710-96) was one of the most daring and original thinkers of the eighteenth century. His work became the cornerstone of the Scottish School of Common Sense Philosophy, and was highly influential in nineteenth-century America; it also anticipated the thinking of such twentieth-century figures as Moore and Wittgenstein. Now, after a long period of neglect, his philosophy is again the subject of increasing attention across the world. For Reid, knowing about ethics is a matter of having 'good evidence' supplied by a sense-like moral faculty. William Davis's book shows how such a view can be both consistent and plausible in the twenty-first century. Thomas Reid's Ethics begins by characterizing the state of moral epistemology at the time when Reid was writing. It goes on to recount Reid's central claims about the moral sense, and describes the various problems that confront those who would explain and defend his views. Davis lays the foundation for resolving these difficulties by detailing an epistemological conception of evidence which parallels the legal conception of evidence used by the Scottish courts of Reid's day. He then shows how Reid's claims about evidence and self-evidence are best understood in light of this legal model. The book concludes by responding to recent worries about 'moral sense' theories, and offers a final assessment of the success of Reid's ethical project. The book will be of substantial interest not only to Reid scholars and historians of philosophy, but also to specialists and students in contemporary ethics.

The essays in this volume tell part of the story about Reid's significance in his time and ours. They represent three broad themes in his philosophy: mind, knowledge, and value. The essays present Reid's philosophy of developing agents in a rich world of objects and values - agents with intellectual and active powers whose regularity is productive. Though such agents are equipped at first with rudimentary abilities, those abilities are responsive. Our powers consist in a fundamental and ongoing engagement with a world that calls on us to be flexible, sensitive, astute, and, ultimately, practical.