Thomas Reid (1710-96) is just about as great as they come. Altho virtually unknown today, this liberal philosopher, rebel, and paladin is a powerful enemy of the would-be philosophical destroyers of man: George Berkeley, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Hegel. On the one hand, Reid only lived long enough to decently study and refute Berkeley and Hume. On the other hand, he was lightly pro-religion. But he still used basic reason and common sense to explicitly and fairly-effectively counter the nihilism and skepticism of Berkeley and Hume; and he used basic reason and common sense to implicitly and fairly-effectively counter the supernaturalism of "god".
Thomas Reid wrote three great books: An Inquiry into the Human Mind: On the Principles of Common Sense (1764), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), and Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788). He was the most formidable thinker of the late 1700s Scottish Enlightenment. And for a generation or two, he was pretty much the intellectual leader of the world. Reid was a champion of the philosophy of common sense realism. If anyone wonders about the intellectual strength and personal magnificence of the mostly-forgotten Thomas Reid, consider what he wrote in his weakest work, and in just the preface and introduction:
Reid begins by focusing squarely on the five most authoritative and important thinkers of his time: "Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume" who he calls "men of very great penetration and genius." Reid generously allows that "However contrary my notions are to the writers I have mentioned, their speculations have been of great use to me." He acknowledges that his rare dissent from their largely skeptical-of-reason philosophies will "be condemned by many" and yet he still hopes to appeal to "the candid and discerning Few."
Just as Immanuel Kant was famously "awakened from my dogmatic slumber" by David Hume, so was Reid, but to infinitely better effect. At age 29, the formerly pro-Berkeley scholar was shocked and galvanized by Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). Reid ominously observed that "the ingenious author of that treatise" has concocted "a system of skepticism which leaves no ground to believe any one thing rather than its contrary."
Altho Thomas Reid heavily condemns irrationalists, skeptics, and sophists like Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel in his Inquiry into the Human Mind, he takes a gentlemanly and magnanimous view of their persons: "I conceive the skeptical writers to be a set of men whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly repaired the whole building will become more firm and solid than it was formerly."
In all his works Reid rejects the ancient hypotheses which began with the Greek skeptics and sophists: "That nothing is perceived but what is in the mind that perceives it: That we do not really perceive things that are external but only certain images and pictures of them imprinted upon the mind, which are called [by Berkeley, Hume, and others] impressions and ideas." He damns that line of reasoning about impressions and ideas which claims people "cannot from their existence infer the existence of any other thing." As for the mental impressions and ideas themselves, Reid notes that "they are such fleeting and transitory beings that they can have no existence at all" under the skepticist intellectual theories. Reid further observes that "upon this hypothesis, the whole universe...vanish[es] at once."
Thomas Reid finds these philosophical claims to be false and evil. He correctly notes that such intellectual irrationality, skepticism, and sophistry "overturn all philosophy...and virtue and common sense." Ultimately, Reid is a ferocious advocate of "common sense and reason".
Reid has enormous respect for Isaac Newton and other scientists of the past century or two. After studying Newton closely he concludes that he "discovered the law of gravitation and the properties of light" using "the maxims of common sense". Alas, "this age [the 1700s]" has generated "a system of skepticism that seems to triumph over all science, and even more over the dictates of common sense."
Taking the high road, as always, Thomas Reid claims "It is genius, and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory." By implication he condemns the Plato-like philosophers of "creative imagination" that don’t deign to involve themselves in the "servile employments [of] the dredges of science." Reid notes that the wild inventions of these philosophers has "coloring and every befitting ornament. The work pleases the eye and wants nothing but solidity and good foundation."
Considering the irrationality, skepticism, and sophistry which dominates his era, Reid admits that "our philosophy concerning the mind and its faculties is but in a very low state." It compares very unfavorably to the hard sciences "of mechanics, astronomy, and optics." When studying enemies of reason like Berkeley and Hume "we are immediately involved in darkness and perplexity" and in danger of falling into "absolute skepticism".
In the opening passages of his Inquiry into the Human Mind, Reid mocks the self-doubt and skepticism-of-reason of Descartes. He notes that "A man that disbelieves his own existence is surely as unfit to be reasoned with as a man that believes he is made of glass." As for his famous "Cogito ergo sum," Reid rejoins "Is it not as good reasoning to say I am sleeping, therefore I am? or I am doing nothing, therefore I am?"
As
for those who wonder if their consciousness deceives them, Reid isn’t
sure whether "to laugh at or pity the man who doubts its
testimony." He helpfully adds that any such philosophical doubter or skeptic should "hope for his cure from physic and good
regimen, rather than from metaphysic and logic."
Reid
laments that "our philosophy concerning the mind appears to be
very fruitful in creating doubts, but very unhappy in resolving
them." The relatively liberal, empiricist, materialist, good guys
of "Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke have all employed their
genius and skill to prove the existence of a material world; and with
very bad success." Reluctantly, Reid is forced to conclude that "these
three great men, with the best good will, had not been able, from all
the treasuries of philosophy, to draw one argument that is fit to
convince a man that can reason, of the existence of any one thing."
Reid mocks: "Admired philosophy! daughter of light! Parent of wisdom and knowledge." He observes that it's the job of these skepticist philosophers to "dispel the clouds and phantoms which thou hast discovered or created." If they can't or won't do it, then mankind has no choice but to say: "I despise philosophy and renounce its guidance: let my soul dwell with Common Sense."
Nothwithstanding their considerable failures, the gentleman Reid makes an "Apology for these philosophers". Despite "The defects and blemishes of their system we ought rather to honor their memories" and thank them for pointing us in the proper direction. Reid claims the skeptics at least helped us defeat the "scholastic sophistry" which did mankind so much damage prior to the Enlightenment.
And if philosophy (in the late 1700s) has earned "the contempt and ridicule of sensible men" this is because it has engaged in unwarranted fancy and fantasy and has "endeavored to extend [its] jurisdiction beyond its just limits." It needs the solid grounding and noble ideals of baseline reason and common sense.
Because "In the unequal contest betwixt Common Sense and Philosophy the later will always come off both with dishonor and loss...it dies and rots." Reid condemns the skeptical philosophers who have "waged open war with Common Sense and hope to make a complete conquest of it."
Almost the entirety of Thomas Reid’s 1764 book takes dead aim at "the Bishop of Cloyne" [Berkeley] and "the author of the Treatise of Human Nature" [Hume]. But despite Reid’s contempt for the irrationality and nonsensicality of their conclusions, he dolorously notes that "the opinions of the ablest judges [of mankind] seems to be that [Berkeley and Hume] neither have been, nor can be confuted; and that they have proved, by unanswerable arguments, what no man in his senses can believe." If so, what could be more destructive to mankind than this?
Hume especially "leaves nothing in nature but ideas and impressions without any subjects [such as humans] on which they may be impressed." Under the philosophy of Hume "there is neither human nature nor science in the world." Hume is "an author who neither believes in his own existence nor that of his readers."
But David Hume, like virtually all other nihilists and skeptics, does not practice what he preaches -- does not try to live by his explicit philosophy. Hume admits that "it was only in solitude and retirement that he could yield an assent to his own philosophy; Society, like daylight, dispelled the darkness and fogs of skepticism and made [it] yield to the dominion of Common Sense." Reid correctly notes that "Pyrrho the Elean [was] the father of this philosophy."
Near the end of the introduction Reid asks if philosophy itself is as false and evil as the thinkers Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel make it out to be. He observes that "It is a bold philosophy that rejects, without ceremony, principles which irresistibly govern the belief and conduct of all mankind."
Reid’s position is that "If philosophy contradicts itself, befools her votaries, and deprives them of every object worthy to be pursued or enjoyed, let her be sent back to the infernal regions from which she must have had her original." But fortunately for all, Reid argues the problem entirely lies with the irrational and nihilistic philosophers like Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Reid finds philosophy itself to be "an agreeable companion, a faithful counselor, [and] a friend to Common Sense, and to the happiness of mankind."
Despite the false and evil claims of skeptical fundamentalists like Berkeley and Hume, Reid and other "sensible" thinkers are undeterred. They continue to use reason, science, and common sense correctly, and thus to understand that "snow is cold and honey sweet, whatever they [the nihilists] may say to the contrary. He must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and sense."
Thomas Reid ends by opposing any philosophy that will "naturally and necessarily plunge a man into this abyss of skepticism." He rejects all theories of irrationality, senselessness, nihilism, and skepticism, affirming that "Such philosophy is justly ridiculous, even to those who cannot detect the fallacy of it. It can have no other tendency than to show the acuteness of the sophist, at the expense of disgracing reason and human nature, and making mankind Yahoos."
