Thomas Reid

Thomas Reid – Life, Philosophy, and the Common Sense Tradition

A comprehensive biography of Thomas Reid (1710–1796), the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and founder of the “common sense” school, exploring his life, key ideas (direct realism, epistemology, free will), and enduring influence.

Introduction

Thomas Reid (April 26, 1710 – October 7, 1796) was a Scottish philosopher best known for founding the Scottish School of Common Sense and critiquing the skepticism of David Hume. Reid argued that certain principles—such as belief in an external world, the reliability of our senses, and moral agency—are foundational to human thought and cannot be undermined by skeptical doubts. His defense of direct realism, agent causation, and a philosophy rooted in everyday experience has left a lasting mark on epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, and the philosophy of religion.

Early Life and Education

Thomas Reid was born in Strachan, Kincardineshire (Scotland), on April 26, 1710. His father, Lewis Reid, was the minister of the local parish; his mother was Margaret Gregory.

He attended the local parish school and then the grammar school in Aberdeen (O’Neil Grammar School). In 1722 he matriculated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he studied the arts and later divinity. He completed theological training and was licensed to preach by the Church of Scotland in 1731.

From around 1733 to 1736, Reid served as librarian at Marischal College. In 1737, he was ordained and became minister of New Machar, a parish near Aberdeen.

Academic Career & Later Life

In 1752, Reid was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at King’s College, Aberdeen. He published his major work An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense in 1764, which crystallized his philosophical vision. Later, Reid was offered and accepted the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, succeeding Adam Smith in that post. In his later years, Reid published two further works:

• Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785)

• Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788)

He died on October 7, 1796 in Glasgow. Reid was originally buried in Blackfriars Churchyard in Glasgow; when the university moved locations, his tombstone was relocated to the new campus’s vestibule, under the tower of the main building.

Philosophical Context

Reid was broadly part of the Scottish Enlightenment and responded directly to the skeptical empiricism of thinkers like David Hume. Where Hume argued that our knowledge is limited to impressions and ideas (thus casting doubt on our certainty of an external world), Reid rejected that approach and sought a more grounded epistemology.

Reid’s school came to be known as the Common Sense School (or Scottish Common Sense Realism).

Core Philosophical Contributions

1. Common Sense & First Principles

One of Reid’s central theses is that certain beliefs are basic, noninferential, and foundational to human life—beliefs we must hold before any further philosophical argument can proceed. These include beliefs like:

• There is an external, material world

• Our senses are generally reliable

• Other minds exist

• The principle of causality

• Personal identity over time

He argued that if one rejects those principles, one can hardly conduct any discourse, much less philosophy. They are not the result of argument, but the preconditions of thought itself.

Reid saw skepticism (especially Humean skepticism) as self-defeating: those who doubt the very validity of first principles are undermining the possibility of reasoned thought itself.

2. Direct Realism (or Common Sense Realism)

Reid defended a direct realist theory of perception: we are in immediate contact with external objects, not with internal ideas or sense-data intermediaries. In other words, sensation does not present us with bare data that we must interpret; rather, perceptions directly acquaint us with real objects.

He drew a distinction between sensation (the raw feeling or stimulus) and perception (our cognitive awareness of external objects). The move from sensation to perception is not mediated by ideas but is immediate.

He criticized the “way of ideas” (the view, prominent in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, that perception is mediated by ideas in the mind) and argued that this approach leads to skepticism.

3. Theory of Action & Free Will

Reid was a libertarian in his account of free will: he held that genuine free actions are those caused by the agent, not by external determinism. In his view, moral responsibility requires that actions originate from the agent.

He introduced the notion of agent causation, in which the self (agent) can begin a causal chain, not merely as an effect of prior events.

In Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, Reid discusses questions of will, choice, moral obligation, and responsibility.

4. Personal Identity

Reid rejected John Locke’s memory theory of personal identity (the view that personal identity is continuity of consciousness or memory). He argued that memory is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish identity. We remain the same person through time even if memory fails.

Instead, Reid viewed personal identity as grounded in the continuing existence of a thinking, willing subject—not reducible to memories or psychological states.

5. Religion and Natural Theology

Reid was a Christian and believed that natural religion (e.g. arguments from design, cosmology) was consistent with philosophy. He believed that the order and purpose in nature provide evidence of a wise Creator, though he did not claim these arguments prove all doctrinal content of religion.

Legacy & Influence

• Reid’s philosophy became highly influential in 19th-century American colleges, especially through the Scottish Common Sense tradition, which shaped many American philosophers and theologians.

• In the 20th century, philosophers like G.E. Moore revived themes of “common sense,” and debates in epistemology and philosophy of religion (such as Reformed Epistemology) have drawn on Reid’s approach.

• Reid’s defense of direct realism continues to resonate with contemporary philosophers of perception who reject the idea of internal representations.

• His views on moral responsibility, agency, and free will remain part of ongoing debates in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and ethics.

Though Kant and later skeptics overshadowed Reid’s reputation in continental philosophy, his revival in analytic and religious philosophy underscores the enduring appeal of his thought.