Online research in philosophy

INTRODUCTION Although the writings of Thomas Reid are very fertile and interesting, his life is biographically barren in comparison to such seventeenth - and ...

Doing Science + Culture is a groundbreaking book on the cultural study of science, technology and medicine. Outstanding contributors including life and physical scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, literature/communication scholars and historians of science who focus on the analysis of science and scientific discourses within culture: what it means to "do" science. The essays are organized into three broad topics: transnational science and globalization (the movements of people, material resources and knowledges that underwrite scientific practices within and across borders of nation-states and (...) regions); emerging subjects and subjectivities (of research and researchers); and postdisciplinary pedagogies and curricula (the institutional settings of classroom, laboratory, department and academic division). Contributors: Itty Abraham, Anne Balsamo, Karen Barad, Michael M.J. Fischer, Joan H. Fujimura, Scott F. Gilbert, Emily Martin, Jackie Orr, Roddey Reid, Molly Rhodes and Sharon Traweek. (shrink)

Dixon, Robert; Reid, Stephen; Connolly, Noel Since the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference established a pastoral research capability in 1996, a great deal of research has been carried out on various aspects of the Catholic community in Australia. This research has been carried out either directly by the Bishops Conference's research staff, or in association with other bodies such as NCLS Research, the Christian Research Association, Australian Catholic University and, most recently, Catholic Religious Australia.

: The Cartesians have often been read as if they denied spatial presence to incorporeal substances, reserving it for extended things alone. This article explores whether this common interpretation is accurate, examining the cases of both created minds and the divine substance of God Himself. Through scrutiny of the relevant texts of both Descartes himself and his followers, it demonstrates that, in the divine case, this common interpretation is incorrect, and that the Cartesians did believe that God’s own substance really (...) was omnipresent in a literal sense. In the case of created minds, by contrast, the article suggests that the standard reading is probably correct after all, and that these substances were indeed excluded from the spatial world: but it also suggests that, in the hands of at least some of the Cartesians, this position caused certain philosophical tensions and potential inconsistencies within their systems. (shrink)

The possible relationship between widespread unauthorized copying of microcomputer software (also known as software piracy) and level of moral judgment is examined through analysis of over 350 survey questionnaires that included the Defining Issues Test as a measure of moral development. It is hypothesized that the higher one''s level of moral judgment, the less likely that one will approve of or engage in unauthorized copying. Analysis of the data indicate a high level of tolerance toward unauthorized copying and limited support (...) for the hypothesis. The most plausible explanation for these findings is that software copying is perceived as an issue of low moral intensity. This study calls into question the software industry''s strategy of concentrating exclusively on institutional compliance with copyright rules, rather than working to raise the perceived moral intensity about software piracy at the individual level. As long as the issue remains low in moral intensity, the industry cannot expect significant shifts in copying behaviors. Individuals must become more aware of and concerned about the nature and magnitude of harm to society and to the rightful copyright owners from unauthorized copying before their attitudes and behaviors come to reflect higher levels of moral judgment. (shrink)

This analysis explores theories of recollective memories and their shortcomings to show how certain recollective memories are to some extent the initial experiencing of past conscious mental states. While dedicated memory theorists over the past century show remembering to be an active and subjective process, they usually make simplistic assumptions regarding the experience that is remembered. Their treatment of experience leaves unexplored the notion that the truth of memory is a dynamic interaction between experience and recollection. The argument's seven sections (...) examine how experience, consciousness, and the self produce memories in odd but actual situations. Examples are presented that are either actual or technologically possible, and they pose a challenge for some theories of memory. Showing that an experience and a memory must be bound by psychological continuity, the sections build upon each other to challenge aprioristic beliefs about the self and consciousness. The later sections examine the lack of available accounts of memory that acknowledge consciousness, dissociation, and "selfhood" to be matters of degree, thus rendering memory theories next to useless when trying to effectively incorporate the notions of experience and reality. (shrink)

: This paper examines how Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) shifted from a broadly Newtonian conception of divine, absolute space to a more Berkeleian or Leibnizian theory of merely relative, ideal space. Setting Edwards' views within a context of contemporary European thought, it elucidates his early position, as expressed in the opening portion of his essay 'Of Being' (c. 1721), and then proceeds to chart the development of his more mature views, showing in particular how the development of his immaterialism during the (...) early 1720s drove him to change his mind on the issue of space and its relationship with God. (shrink)

: This paper charts the gradual development of a theory of real space, underlying the created world and constituted by the extension of God Himself, in the writings of the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More. It identifies two impediments to More's embracing such a theory in the earlier part of his career, namely his initial commitment to the principles that (a) space was not real and (b) God was not extended, and it shows how he finally came to renounce these principles (...) in order to devise the theory so closely associated with him. (shrink)

: This paper examines the nature of the harm-benefit tradeoff in early clinical research for interventions that involve remote possibility of direct benefit and likelihood of direct harms to research participants with fatal prognoses, by drawing on the example of gene transfer trials for glioblastoma multiforme. We argue that the appeal made by the component approach to clinical equipoise fails to account fully for the nature of the harm-benefit tradeoff—individual harm for social benefit—that would be required to justify such research. (...) An analysis of what we label "collateral affective benefits," such as the experience of hope or exercise of altruism, shows that the existence of these motivations reinforces rather than mitigates the necessity of justification by reference to social benefit. Evaluations of social benefit must be taken seriously in the research ethics review process to avoid the exploitation of research participants' motivations of hope or altruism and to avoid the possibility of inadvertent exploitation of high-risk research participants and the harms that would associate with such exploitation. (shrink)

In his last great philosophical essay, 'Of Power', Reid makes the plausible claim that 'our first exertions are instinctive' and made 'without any distinct conception of the event that is to follow'. According to Reid, these instinctive exertions allow us to form beliefs about correlations between exertions and consequential events. Such instinctive exertions also explain the origin of our conception of power. In this paper, I argue that we can use the notion of instinctive exertions to address several (...) objections that have been raised concerning Reid's rejection of the claim that sensations possess spatial content. (shrink)

Thomas Reid’s epistemological ambitions are decisively at the center of his work. However, if we take such ambitions to be the whole story, we are apt to overlook the theory of mind that Reid develops and deploys against the theory of ideas. Reid’s philosophy of mind is sophisticated and strikingly contemporary, and has, until recently, been lost in the shadow of his other philosophical accomplishments. Here I survey some aspects of Reid’s theory of mind that I (...) find most interesting. I examine whether Reid is a mysterian about the mind, whether Reid has a direct realist theory of perception, and whether Reid has a higher-order, or “inner-sense,” view of consciousness. Along the way I will mention portions of the secondary literature that examine these aspects and point out whether and to what degree I part ways with the interpretations present in the literature. (shrink)

Reid’s discussion of Molyneux’s question has been neglected. The Inquiry discusses the question twice, offering opposing answers. The first discussion treats the underlying issue as concerning common perceptibles of touch and vision, and in particular whether in vision we originally perceive depth. Although it is tempting to treat the second discussion as doing the same, this would render pointless various novel features Reid introduces in reformulating Molyneux’s question. Rather, the issue now is whether the blind can form a (...) reasonable conception of visual appearances, a conception that would allow them to perform Molyneux’s task. In explaining why Reid thought they can, I draw on his account of primary quality concepts as independent of sensation; of concept possession as ability, not acquaintance with sensation; and of visual appearance itself as in key part a matter of the perception of a primary quality, visible figure. Thus the issue does not concern cross-modality, what vision has in common with touch; but how even what is central in vision is amodal, able to be grasped independently of any sensory mode. Reid’s second Molyneux discussion thereby forms a focus for the Inquiry’s central claims, and the rejection of the Ideal Theory they entail. (shrink)

Reid offers an under-appreciated account of the primary/secondary quality distinction. He gives sound reasons for rejecting the views of Locke, Boyle, Galileo and others, and presents a better alternative, according to which the distinction is epistemic rather than metaphysical. Primary qualities, for Reid, are qualities whose intrinsic natures can be known through sensation. Secondary qualities, on the other hand, are unknown causes of sensations. Some may object that Reid's view is internally inconsistent, or unacceptably relativistic. However, a (...) deeper understanding shows that it is consistent, and relative only to normal humans. To acquire this deeper understanding, one must also explore the nature of dispositions, Reid's rejection of the theory of ideas, his distinction between sensation and perception, and his distinction between natural and acquired perceptions. (shrink)

Reid rejects the image theory --the representative or indirect realist position--that memory-judgements are inferred from or otherwise justified by a present image or introspectible state. He also rejects the trace theory , which regards memories as essentially traces in the brain. In contrast he argues for a direct knowledge account in which personal memory yields unmediated knowledge of the past. He asserts the reliability of memory, not in currently fashionable terms as a reliable belief-forming process, but more elusively as (...) a principle of Commonsense. There remains a contemporary consensus against Reid's position. I argue that Reid's critique is essentially sound, and that the consensus is mistaken; personal memory judgements are spontaneous and non-inferential in the same way as perceptual judgements. But I question Reid's account of the connection between personal memory and personal identity. My primary concern is rationally reconstructive rather than scholarly, and downplays recent interpretations of Reid's faculty psychology as a precursor of functionalism and other scientific philosophies of mind. (shrink)

The notion of “conception” plays a central role in Thomas Reid’s theory of perceptual knowledge, although “conception” might be studied for itself as a source of knowledge. In this study, we attempt to expose systematically the several contexts where Reid deals with the source of knowledge and the kind of mental operation called “conception”. The purpose is to understand a specific aspect of the deliverances of “conception” in Reid’s theory of perception, namely, a direct relationship, not mediated (...) by ideas, between knowing subject and external world. To understand the operation of conceiving, which is intrinsic to and constitutive of perception, is an efficient way to comprehend the nature and content of perceptual knowledge. At this step, reflections on the relationship between mind and external world, that is, mind and material world, have to be made. (shrink)

Thomas Reid thought of himself as a critic of the representative theory of perception, of what he called the ‘theory of ideas’ or ‘the ideal theory’.2 He had no kind words for that theory: “The theory of ideas, like the Trojan horse, had a specious appearance both of innocence and beauty; but if those philosophers had known that it carried in its belly death and destruction to all science and common sense, they would not have broken down their walls (...) to give it admittance.”3 Many have supposed that his opposition to the representative theory was grounded in his direct realism.4 A direct realist theory of perception holds that perception of external objects is not mediated by any mental entity whose intrinsic character licenses a move from the mental entity to the external object presented in perception. Reid himself, in an oration of 1759, delivered at graduation ceremonies over which he presided as regent and professor of philosophy at King’s College in Aberdeen, said that he did not “understand what need there is of an intermediate object for thought about something to be possible.”5 Hence, if Reid was not a direct realist, philosophers and historians would have to ask whether and to what degree Reid was what he thought himself to be. (shrink)

In the chapter “The Geometry of Visibles” in his ‘Inquiry into the Human Mind’, Thomas Reid constructs a special space, develops a special geometry for that space, and offers a natural model for this geometry. In doing so, Reid “discovers” non-Euclidean Geometry sixty years before the mathematicians. This paper examines this “discovery” and the philosophical motivations underlying it. By reviewing Reid’s ideas on visible space and confronting him with Kant and Berkeley, I hope, moreover, to resolve an (...) alleged impasse in Reid’s philosophy concerning the contradictory characteristics of Reid’s tangible and visible space. (shrink)

According to Thomas Reid, an agent cannot be free unless she has the power to do otherwise. This claim is usually interpreted as a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. Against this interpretation, I argue that Reid is committed to the seemingly paradoxical position that an agent may have the power to do otherwise despite the fact that it is impossible that she do otherwise. Reid's claim about the power to do otherwise does not, therefore, entail (...) the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. When it is an agent's character that deprives her of alternate possibilities, she is not thereby deprived of either power or freedom, and this is true even if the agent was not free or active in the formation of her character. (shrink)

John Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities of objects has meet resistance. In this paper I bypass the traditional critiques of the distinction and instead concentrate on two specific counterexamples to the distinction: Killer yellow and the puzzle of multiple dispositions. One can accommodate these puzzles, I argue, by adopting Thomas Reid’s version of the primary/secondary quality distinction, where the distinction is founded upon conceptual grounds. The primary/secondary quality distinction is epistemic rather than metaphysical. A consequence of (...) class='Hi'>Reid’s primary/ secondary quality distinction is that one must deny the original version of Molyneux’s question, while one must affirm an amended version of it. I show that these two answers to Molyneux’s question are not at odds with current empirical research. (shrink)

1. Introduction. Like other direct realists, Thomas Reid offered an alternative to indirect realist and idealist accounts of perception. Reids alternative aimed to preserve the indirect realists commitment to realism about the objects of perception, and the idealists commitment to the immediacy of the minds relation to the objects of perception. Reid holds that what you perceive is mind independent or external; and your relation to such objects in perception is direct or immediate. In his own words, something (...) which is extended and solid, which may be measured and weighed, is the immediate object of my touch and sight. And this object I take to be matter, and not an idea (IP II xi, 154). (shrink)

Thomas Reid's distinction between original and acquired perception is not merely metaphysical; it has psychological and phenomenological stories to tell. Psychologically, acquired perception provides increased sensitivity to features in the environment. Phenomenologically, Reid's theory resists the notion that original perception is exhaustive of perceptual experience. James Van Cleve has argued that most cases of acquired perception do not count as perception and so do not pose a threat to Reid's direct realism. I argue that acquired perception is (...) genuine perception and as direct as original perception. Perception is grounded in a productive and developing relationship between the mind and world. (shrink)

By the middle of the eighteenth century the new science had challenged the intellectual primacy of common experience in favor of recondite, expert and even counter-intuitive knowledge increasingly mediated by specialized instruments. Meanwhile modern philosophy had also problematized the perceptions of common experience - in the case of David Hume this included our perception of causal relations in nature, a fundamental precondition of scientific endeavor.In this article I argue that, in responding to the 'problem of induction' as advanced by Hume, (...) Reid reformulated Aristotelian foundationalism in distinctly modern terms. An educator and mathematician self-consciously working within the framework of the new science, Reid articulated a philosophical foundation for natural knowledge anchored in the human constitution and in processes of adjudication in an emerging modern public sphere of enlightened discourse. Reid thereby transformed one of the bases of Aristotelian science - common experience - into a philosophically and socially justified notion of 'common sense'. Reid's intellectual concerns had as much to do with the philosophy of science as they did with moral philosophy or epistemology proper, and were bound up with wider social and scientific changes taking place in the early modern period. (shrink)

For Reid, the external senses have a “double province.” They give rise to both sensation and perception. This essay is about the relation of sensation and perception, a relation Reid’s sign theory of sensations describes. Drawing on Reid’s distinctions between general and particular principles of our constitution, relative and absolute conceptions, and original and acquired perception, the paper systematizes Reid’s sporadic comments on the sign theory. The aim is to offer an interpretation which reveals the overall (...) structure, rationale and coherence of Reid’s sign theory. (shrink)

Thomas Reid is often misread as defending common sense, if at all, only by relying on illicit premises about God or our natural faculties. On these theological or reliabilist misreadings, Reid makes common sense assertions where he cannot give arguments. This paper attempts to untangle Reid's defense of common sense by distinguishing four arguments: (a) the argument from madness, (b) the argument from natural faculties, (c) the argument from impotence, and (d) the argument from practical commitment. Of (...) these, (a) and (c) do rely on problematic premises that are no more secure than claims of common sense itself. Yet (b) and (d) do not. This conclusion can be established directly by considering the arguments informally, but one might still worry that there is an implicit premise in them. In order to address this concern, I reconstruct the arguments in the framework of subjective Bayesianism. The worry becomes this: Do the arguments rely on specific values for the prior probability of some premises? Reid's appeals to our prior cognitive and practical commitments do not. Rather than relying on specific probability assignments, they draw on things that are part of the Bayesian framework itself, such as the nature of observation and the connection between belief and action. Contra the theological or reliabilist readings, the defense of common sense does not require indefensible premises. (shrink)

I suggest a possible rehabilitation of Reid's philosophy of mind by a constructive use of Kant's criticisms of the common sense tradition. Kant offers two criticisms, explicitly claiming that common sense philosophy is ill directed methodologically, and implicitly rejecting Reid's view that there is direct epistemological access by introspection to the ontology of mind. Putting the two views together reveals a tension between epistemology and ontology, but the problem which Kant finds in Reid also infects his own (...) system, as his weaker ontological claims are undermined to such an extent by the necessary reintroduction of self-consciousness that the justification he seeks for reason fails to be reached epistemologically. Plausible solutions to these parallel tensions imply that both Reid and Kant have a pre-systematic concept of mind, and may lead to the conclusion that Reid's method is more economical in the elaboration of an ontology for the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Moore's 'Proof of an External World' has evoked a variety of responses from philosophers, including bafflement, indignation and sympathetic reconstruction. I argue that Moore should be understood as following Thomas Reid on a variety of points, both epistemological and methodological. Moreover, Moore and Reid are exactly right on all of these points. Hence what I present is a defence of Moore's 'Proof', as well as an interpretation. Finally, I argue that the Reid-Moore position is useful for resolving (...) an issue that has recently received attention in epistemology, namely, how is it that one knows that one is not a brain in a vat? (shrink)

Thomas Reid claims to share Locke's view that consciousness is a kind of inner sense. This is puzzling, given the role the inner-sense theory plays in indirect realism and in the theory of ideas generally. I argue that Reid does not in fact hold an inner-sense theory of consciousness and that his view differs importantly from contemporary higher-order theories of consciousness. For Reid, consciousness is a first-order representational process in which a mental state with a particular content (...) suggests the application of recognitional concepts in forming beliefs or judgements to the effect that one is currently undergoing a state with that content. I take up the question of whether Reid's theory leads to a regress, and I argue that while the regress cannot be eliminated, it is mitigated by the non-hierarchical nature of Reid's theory of mind. (shrink)

Thomas Reid thinks of natural philosophy as a purely nomothetic enterprise but he maintains that it is proper for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology in formulating their explanatory claims. In this paper, I analyze this puzzle in light of Reid's distinction between efficient and physical causation – a distinction he grounds in his strict understanding of active powers. I consider several possible reasons that Reid may have for maintaining that natural philosophers ought to employ causal terminology (...) and suggest that the underlying rationale for his views is his understanding of the aims of explanation and their connection to the interests of human agents. The ultimate aim of knowing the causes of phenomena is to mollify the natural intellectual curiosity of human inquirers and provide guidance that insures successful action. The discovery of laws governing phenomena fulfills this aim and, as such, it is appropriate for natural philosophers to employ causal terminology. (shrink)

David Hume’s critique of intelligent design is vastly overrated. Nevertheless, his critique, especially at the hands of his contemporary disciples, has been highly effective at shutting down discussion about design. I want here to review Hume’s critique, indicate how modern disciples have updated it, and then describe the response to Hume by his contemporary Thomas Reid. That response in my view is decisive. Would that more philosophers studied it. Hume did not demolish design. Reid demolished Hume.

For Reid, sensations do not enter into the analysis of perception proper. Instead they “intervene” between the effects of bodily qualities on our sense organs and our perception of those qualities (Inq VI xxi, 174).1 The question addressed in this essay is: What sort of thing does Reid take this interloper to be?2 The answer defended is that sensations are reflexive mental acts, i.e., acts which take themselves as objects.

In October 1775, David Hume wrote to his printer William Strahan, requesting that an ‘Advertisement’ should be attached to remaining copies of the second volume of his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. This volume contained his two Enquiries, the Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion, and the Advertisement states that these works should ‘alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles’ (E 2). In the covering letter, Hume comments that this ‘is a compleat (...) Answer to Dr Reid and to that bigotted silly Fellow, Beattie.’ (HL ii. 301). My aim here is to try to throw light on what Hume might have meant by this comment, and to assess to what extent it might have been justified. (shrink)

There is a problem about the compatibility of Reid's commitment to both a sign theory of sensations and also direct realism. I show that Reid is committed to three different senses of the claim that mind independent bodies and their qualities are among the immediate objects of perception, and I then argue that Reid's sign theory conflicts with one of these. I conclude by advocating one proposal for reconciling Reid's claims, deferring a thorough development and defence (...) of the proposal to another paper. (shrink)

Hume bequeathed to rational intuitionists a problem concerning moral judgment and the will – a problem of sufficient severity that it is still cited as one of the major reasons why intuitionism is untenable.1 Stated in general terms, the problem concerns how an intuitionist moral theory can account for the intimate connection between moral judgment and moral motivation. One reason that this is still considered to be a problem for intuitionists is that it is widely assumed that the early intuitionists (...) made little progress towards solving it. In this essay, I wish to challenge this assumption by examining one of the more subtle intuitionist responses to Hume, viz., that offered by Thomas Reid. For reasons that remain unclear to me, Reid's response to Hume on this issue has been almost entirely neglected. I shall argue that it is nonetheless one that merits our attention, for at least two reasons. In the first place, Reid's response to Hume's challenge to rational intuitionism bears a close affinity to the type of response that he offers to Hume's broadly skeptical challenge to realist views regarding our perception of the external world. Since Reid's strategy in the latter case is widely regarded as exhibiting significant promise, it is natural to wonder whether, when applied to the moral domain, this type of strategy displays similar promise.2 I will suggest that it does. That is, I will suggest that since Reid's broadly nativist position in perception is one well worth considering, then so also is his broadly nativist account of moral motivation. Second, Reid's position regarding moral motivation represents an intriguing attempt to blend a broadly intuitionist view with important insights from the sentimentalist tradition. In this respect, Reid's view is a genuine hybrid position unlike that offered by other intuitionists such as Richard Price. The synthetic character of Reid's position, I claim, gives it a unique type of theoretical richness, since it incorporates some very attractive features of both rational intuitionism and sentimentalism. (shrink)

Adam Smith and Thomas Reid follow Joseph Butler's lead in discussing the moral significance of resentment in great detail. David Hume does not. For Smith and Reid, resentment reveals shortcomings in Hume's attempt to ground justice solely in terms of self-interest and public utility. This can be seen most clearly in Reid's critique of Hume's response to the sensible knave. Reid argues that Hume's appeal to our integrity can have force only if Hume concedes that there (...) are elements of justice that are grounded in neither self-interest nor public utility. (shrink)

Central to the contemporary dispute over 'naturalizing epistemology' is the question of the continuity of epistemology with science, i.e., how far purely descriptive, psychological matters can or should inform the traditional evaluative epistemological enterprise. Thus all parties tend to agree that the distinction between psychology and epistemology corresponds to a firm fact/value distinction. This is something Reid denies with respect to the first principles of common sense: while insisting on the continuity of epistemology with the rest of science, he (...) does not wish to derive an 'ought' from an 'is', nor to reduce the epistemological to the psychological. His view is that the first principles are constitutive principles, hence that they are simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive, and thus that with regard to them there is in this sense simply no fact/value gap to be bridged. (shrink)

Maria Alvarez has argued that Thomas Reid’s account of action gives rise to a sceptical worry concerning one’s awareness of one’s own actions. Against this, I argue that Alvarez overstates the sceptical consequences of Reid’s admission that there is room for doubt about the actual causes of bodily movements; rather than generating a serious epistemological problem for his theory, it can be given a more plausible reading that serves to defuse the sceptical worry.

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

The paper argues that it is a mistake to interpret Thomas Reid as holding a libertarian notion of freedom, and to make use of Reid to argue in support of a libertarian position. More precisely, this paper shows that Reid’s theory of agent-causation may not be what these philosophers take it to be, once such crucial notions as agent-causation and active power in Reid’s theory of free agency have been fully explicated. Reid is more committed (...) to accepting the view of freedom as rational self-control over the determination of the will than a contracausal view of freedom. (shrink)

According to Reid, opinions that contradict the principles of common sense are not only false but also absurd. Nature has given us an emotion that reveals the absurdity of an opinion: the emotion of ridicule. An appeal to ridicule in philosophical arguments may easily be discounted as a logical fallacy in the same manner as an appeal to the common consent of people. This essay traces the origins of Reid's defense of ridicule in the works of Addison, Hutcheson, (...) Shaftesbury and Campbell. Reid rejected a non-epistemic view of the sense of ridicule. According to Reid, ridicule includes both a feeling and a particular act of judgment based on the principles of common sense. (shrink)

Reid's theory of perception has long been cited as a paradigmatic example of direct realism; and the term “direct” undoubtedly carries the connotation that external objects are items in “the manifold of intuition.” There are important ways in which perception, on Reid's analysis, undoubtedly is immediate and direct. Nonetheless, this paper contends that, with the exception of his account of our perception of visible fi gure, Reid's theory is not an example of direct realism, if a condition (...) of a theory of percep- tion's being a direct realist theory is that it hold that perception yields acquaintance with external objects, so that those objects are present to consciousness. The defense given in Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology of the no-acquaintance interpretation of Reid's theory occurred in the context of a comprehensive account of Reid's theory of perception, and was accordingly brief. This essay places that interpretation in the center of attention so as to offer a more adequate defense, developing somewhat more fully the arguments briefly presented in the book, and adding some additional considerations. (shrink)

This book bears witness to the current reawakening of interest in Reid's philosophy. It first examines Reid's negative attack on the Way of Ideas, and finds him to be a devastating critic of his predecessors.

Epistemological realists have long struggled to explain perceptual error without introducing a tertium quid between perceivers and physical objects. Two leading realist philosophers, Thomas Reid and Everett Hall, agreed in denying that mental entities are the immediate objects of perceptions of the external world, but each relied upon strange metaphysical entities of his own in the construction of a realist philosophy of perception. Reid added ‘visible figures’ to sensory impressions and specific sorts of mental events, while Hall utilized (...) an array of ways that he maintained properties may participate in the world. This paper assesses each realist's attempt to explain perceptual relativity and illusion without contradicting either the science of his time or the structure of common sense. (shrink)

: Some critics find that Thomas Reid thinks the mind especially problematic, "hid in impenetrable darkness". I disagree. Reid does not hold that mind, more than body, resists explanation by the new science. The physical sciences have made great progress because they were transformed by the Newtonian revolution, and the key transformation was to stop looking for causes. Reid's harsh words are a call for methodological reform, consonant with his lifelong pursuit of a science of mind and (...) also with his frequent (though overlooked) optimism about such a science. (shrink)

In Essays on the Active Powers, Thomas Reid offers two different accounts of motives. According to the first, motives are the ends for which we act. According to the second, they are mental states, such as desires, that incite us to action. These two accounts, I claim, do not fit comfortably with Reid's agent causal account of human action. My project in this article is to explain why and then to propose a strategy for reconciling these two accounts (...) with Reid's views about action. (shrink)

In a career of over seventy years, Kenneth Burke has produced a body of challenging and fascinating theoretical work. This work has had a bigger reputation than it has had a readership. Burke has been hailed not only as a strong precursor of the work of Fredric Jameson, Frank Lentriccia, and others, but also as a powerful original thinker whose writings have yet to be grappled with. Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric and Ideology is a lucid and accessible introduction to (...) a major twentieth-century thinker whose ideas have influenced fields as diverse as literary criticism, philosophy, linguistics, politics, anthropology and sociology. Stephen Bygrade explores the content of Burke's vast output, theorizing the cultural and philosophical implications of his work. Bygrave's rigorous arguments focus around Burke's preoccupation with the relationship between language, ideology, and action. This book traces Burke's "rhetorical strategies" and argues that they form a bridge between "action" and "symbolic action." By considering Burke as a reader and writer of narratives and systems, Bygrade examines the inadequacies of earlier readings of Burke and enfolds his thought within current debates on Anglo-American cultural theory. By reinstating Burke into contemporary cultural theory, this book offers a way of reading his ideas, as well as introducing students of literature and cultural studies to the range of ideas found in his work. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is an affinity between Reid and Husserl, or at least between Reid and what I shall call the 'Austrian' Husserl as opposed to the 'German' Husserl. The first is a realist, the scourge of psychologism, a sober and painstaking analyst of the various kinds of intentional experience, for whom such analysis is just an extension of ontology. The second is a radical idealist, closer to Fichte than to Kant. In describing the (...) structures of 'transcendental' consciousness he takes himself to be describing the 'origin' of the world and everything in it, including himself as a psychophysical entity. He sees the history of philosophy as being determined by an inner telos, such that it culminates in his own transcendental phenomenology, of which he is the mere instrument. (shrink)

The name of Thomas Reid rarely appears in discussions of the history of moral thought. This is a pity, since Reid has a lot of interesting ideas that can contribute to the current discussions in meta-ethics. Reid can be understood as an ethical intuitionist. What makes his account especially interesting is the role affective states play in his intuitionist theory. Reid defends a cognitive theory of moral emotions. According to Reid, there are moral feelings that (...) are the result of a moral judgment made by reason. The judgment and the feeling together constitute what Reid calls sentiments. Reid thinks that affective states (feelings and sentiments) play the role of helping reason to guide and control the egoistic feelings and passions. The affective states are particularly important, in Reid's view, because the motivating force of reason is often defeated by the stronger motivating force of the passions. So without affective states, we would often not be able to do what is morally good or right. In this paper, I will argue that the role of the affective states is still too limited in Reid's approach. He takes affective states to have a merely motivational function, namely, to help reason to control the passions and motivate to action where reason is too weak. Reid thinks that in making moral judgments we do not need to have feelings, feelings are at most a result of a judgment. Instead, I will argue that affective states also play an epistemological role. (shrink)

I argue that Reid adopts a form of Meinongianism about fictional objects because of, not in spite of, his common sense philosophy. According to 'the way of ideas', thoughts take representational states as their immediate intentional objects. In contrast, Reid endorses a direct theory of conception and a heady thesis of first-person privileged access to the contents of our thoughts. He claims that thoughts about centaurs are thoughts of non-existent objects, not thoughts about mental intermediaries, adverbial states or (...) general concepts. In part this is because of the common sense semantics he adopts for fictional-object terms. I show that it is reasonable for Reid to endorse Meinongianism, given his epistemological priorities, for he took the way of ideas to imply that his view about first-person privileged access to our mental contents was false. (shrink)

Libertarians, like Thomas Reid, hold that motives do not causally necessitate our choices. The problem that arises is to explain how the agent decides to act according to one motive and not the other. In light of some objections brought up by Leibniz and Edwards but also by contemporary compatibilists such as Haji and Goetz, I examine Thomas Reid's possible answer to this problem. I argue that to explain our choices Reid would appeal not only to (...) motives and character traits but also to the amount of effort needed to choose what is best. I also address Reid's criticism of the implicit presupposition of the Principle of Suffi cient Reason. My aim is therefore to explore, clarify and defend Reid's account of agency in choicemaking. (shrink)

: Thomas Reid uses the notion of exertion in various ways that have not been distinguished in the secondary literature. Sometimes he uses it to refer to the exercise of a capacity or power, sometimes to the turning on or activitating of a capacity or power, and still other times to the attempt to activate a capacity or power. Getting clear on Reid's different uses of the term 'exertion' is essential to understanding his account of the sequence of (...) events in human action. It is also helpful in defending Reid against the objection that his account of action is subject to an infinite regress. (shrink)

When we look at a tree, two images of it are formed, one on each of our retinas. Why, then, asks the child or the philosopher, do we not see two trees?1 Thomas Reid offers an answer to this question in the section of his Inquiry into the Human Mind entitled ‘Of seeing objects single with two eyes’. The principles he invokes in his answer serve at the same time to explain why we do occasionally see objects double. In (...) Part I of this essay, I examine the principles Reid uses to explain single and double vision. This part is mostly an exercise in the history of cognitive science, but it raises questions of interest to philosophers along the way. In Part II, I turn to a hard-core philosophical problem raised by double vision, namely, whether double vision constitutes an objection to the direct realist theory of perception, which was one of Reid's main philosophical purposes to promote. (shrink)

Hume's maxim consists of two principles which are logically independent of each other: (1) whatever is conceivable is possible; and (2) whatever is inconceivable is impossible. Thomas Reid offered several arguments against the former principle, while John Stuart mill argued against the latter. The primary concern of this paper is to examine whether Reid and mill were successful in calling Hume's maxim into question.

Reid said little in his published writings about his contemporary Joseph Priestley, but his unpublished work is largely devoted to the latter. Much of Priestley's philosophical thought- his materialism, his determinism, his Lockean scientific realism- was as antithetical to Reid's as was Hume's philosophy in a very different way. Neither Reid nor Priestley formulated a full response to the other. Priestley's response to Reid came very early in his career, and is marked by haste and immaturity. (...) In his last decade Reid worried much about Priestley's materialism, but that concern never reached publication. I document Reid's unpublished response to Priestley, and also view Reid's response from Priestley's perspective, as deduced from his published works. Both thinkers attempted to base their arguments on Newtonian method. Reid's position is the more puzzling of the two, since he nowhere makes clear how Newtonian method favours mind-body dualism over materialism, which is the central debate between them. (shrink)

The two great philosophical figures at the culminating point of the Enlightenment are Thomas Reid in Scotland and Immanuel Kant in Germany. Reid was by far the most influential across Europe and the United States well into the nineteenth century. Since that time his fame and influence have been eclipsed by his German contemporary. This important book by one of today's leading philosophers of knowledge and religion will do much to reestablish the significance of 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 other book that both uncovers the deep pattern of Reid's thought and relates it to contemporary philosophical debate. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Reid's responses to regress arguments against the possibility of free will, highlighting the role played by long-term decisions (“general fixed purposes”) in the explanation of paradigmatic free actions on Reid's account. In addition to reconstructing Reid's response to the two versions of the regress argument that he explicitly discusses, I also construct a Reidian response to Galen Strawson's contemporary version of the regress argument. The depth of Reid's position is most apparent in the (...) resources it provides for responding to this sophisticated articulation of a traditional argument against freedom of the will. (shrink)

The doctrine of abstract ideas contains Locke’s views on the nature of generality and how we think in general terms-the nature of universals, of general concepts, and how we classify. While Reid rejects abstract ideas, he accepts Locke’s insight that we have an ability to abstract. In this paper, I show how Reid preserves Locke’s insight, while providing a more versatile and forward-looking account of universals and concepts than Locke was able to give.Reid replaces abstract ideas with (...) what he calls “general conceptions.” But general conceptions are really three different things. First, they are universals---non-mental intrinsically general objects of acts of abstraction and conception. I show how Reid is able to make the claim that there are universals without being committed to holding that universals really exist. This claim, together with his type/token distinction, enables Reid to better explain how we have knowledge of attributes and use general terms meaningfully. The general features of our experience are not ideas and are not produced by the faculty of abstraction---but that faculty enables us to distinguish them.In the second sense, a general conception is an act of mind which takes universals as objects. Thinking in general tenns is not the manipulation of abstract ideas---it is engaging in acts of conceiving. Such acts are made possible by general conceptions in the third sense, namely, general concepts. While Reid does not distinguish this sense explicitly, I argue that he takes general concepts to be dispositions or abilities to distinguish general features of objects and to use the general terms of language as other users do. So rather than producing mental entities---abstract ideas---that act as standards to help us classify, abstraction makes possible the development of abilities to use general terms and classify objects. (shrink)

Independently of any eighteenth century work on the geometry of parallels, Thomas Reid discovered the non-euclidean "geometry of visibles" in 1764. Reid's construction uses an idealized eye, incapable of making distance discriminations, to specify operationally a two dimensional visible space and a set of objects, the visibles. Reid offers sample theorems for his doubly elliptical geometry and proposes a natural model, the surface of the sphere. His construction draws on eighteenth century theory of vision for some of (...) its technical features and is motivated by Reid's desire to defend realism against Berkeley's idealist treatment of visual space. (shrink)

The subject of this investigation is the role of conventions in the formulation of Thomas Reid's theory of the geometry of vision, which he calls the 'geometry of visibles'. In particular, we will examine the work of N. Daniels and R. Angell who have alleged that, respectively, Reid's 'geometry of visibles' and the geometry of the visual field are non-Euclidean. As will be demonstrated, however, the construction of any geometry of vision is subject to a choice of conventions (...) regarding the construction and assignment of its various properties, especially metric properties, and this fact undermines the claim for a unique non-Euclidean status for the geometry of vision. Finally, a suggestion is offered for trying to reconcile Reid's direct realist theory of perception with his geometry of visibles.While Thomas Reid is well-known as the leading exponent of the Scottish 'common-sense' school of philosophy, his role in the history of geometry has only recently been drawing the attention of the scholarly community. In particular, several influential works, by N. Daniels and R. B. Angell, have claimed Reid as the discoverer of non-Euclidean geometry; an achievement, moreover, that pre-dates the geometries of Lobachevsky, Bolyai, and Gauss by over a half century. Reid's alleged discovery appears within the context of his analysis of the geometry of the visual field, which he dubs the 'geometry of visibles'. In summarizing the importance of Reid's philosophy in this area, Daniels is led to conclude that 'there can remain little doubt that Reid intends the geometry of visibles to be an alternative to Euclidean geometry'; while Angell, similarly inspired by Reid, draws a much stronger inference: 'The geometry which precisely and naturally fits the actual configurations of the visual field is a non-Euclidean, two-dimensional, elliptical geometry. In substance, this thesis was advanced by Thomas Reid in 1764 ...' The significance of these findings has not gone unnoticed in mathematical and scientific circles, moreover, for Reid's name is beginning to appear more frequently in historical surveys of the development of geometry and the theories of space.Implicit in the recent work on Reid's 'geometry of visibles', or GOV, one can discern two closely related but distinct arguments: first, that Reid did in fact formulate a non-Euclidean geometry, and second, that the GOV is non-Euclidean. This essay will investigate mainly the latter claim, although a lengthy discussion will be accorded to the first. Overall, in contrast to the optimistic reports of a non-Euclidean GOV, it will be argued that there is a great deal of conceptual freedom in the construction of any geometry pertaining to the visual field. Rather than single out a non-Euclidean structure as the only geometry consistent with visual phenomena, an examination of Reid, Daniels, and Angell will reveal the crucial role of geometric 'conventions', especially of the metric sort, in the formulation of the GOV (where a 'metric' can be simply defined as a system for determining distances, the measures of angles, etc.). Consequently, while a non-Euclidean geometry is consistent with Reid's GOV, it is only one of many different geometrical structures that a GOV can possess. Angell's theory that the GOV can only be construed as non-Euclidean, is thus incorrect. After an exploration of Reid's theory and the alleged non-Euclidean nature of the GOV, in respectively, the focus will turn to the tacit role of conventionalism in Daniels' reconstruction of Reid's GOV argument, and in the contemporary treatment of a non-Euclidean visual geometry offered by Angell (). Finally, in the conclusion, a suggestion will be offered for a possible reconstruction of Reid's GOV that does not violate his avowed 'direct realist' theory of perception, since this epistemological thesis largely prompted his formulation of the GOV. (shrink)

Over the Last Three Decades or so, Thomas Reid has been a source of inspiration for a number of epistemologists with a broadly externalist orientation.1 For them, Reid broke the spell of internalism, roughly the thesis that justification (or whatever it is that bridges the gap between mere true belief and knowledge) exclusively requires the occurrence of factors that are somehow “internal” to the subject. As will appear in due course, many lines of thought in Reid merit (...) the externalist’s enthusiasm. At the same time this should not make us oblivious to the fact that in Reid’s work we also find lines of thought that unmistakably have an “internalist” ring. The aim of this paper is to identify these strands .. (shrink)

In issue 6.1 of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy, James Van Cleve describes Thomas Reid's understanding of double vision and then presents a challenge to his direct realism found in works of David Hume based on double vision. The challenge is as follows: When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become double, and one half of them to be remov'd from their common and natural position. But as we do not attribute (...) a continu'd existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive, that all our perceptions [i.e., all the things we perceive] are dependent on our organs, and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits. (THN: 210–211). (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to study the different roles of inner experience and the inner sense in Empiricism, especially from argumentative and methodological perspectives. The research studies the philosophies of the three classical Empiricists, Locke, Berkeley and Hume, as well as that of Thomas Reid, Hume’s contemporary and the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, who embraces the experiential methodology of the Empiricists while criticizing many of their epistemological presumptions. The study shows (...) that Empiricism, supposedly a methodology for studying the external (to the mind) world, paradoxically becomes a discussion focusing on inner experience and states of consciousness. Special attention in this research is given to methodological discussions in Empiricism pertaining to the roles and status of the inner sense, and to actual arguments which rely on inner experience. In this, the research portrays types of relations that exists between epistemology, methodology and argumentation, as different aspects of theory and praxis in philosophy. As a study of philosophical argumentation, the research presents a typology of informal arguments that rely on inner experience. In general, this study is a broad discussion of British Empiricism from the perspective of inner experience as a vital epistemological and methodological consideration. The epistemological discussion focuses on issues such as differentiating between inner and outer experience, the phenomenological classification of experience in general, and the distinction between consciousness and reflection. This study also touches on a number of meta-philosophical questions: the relation between theory and praxis in philosophy; does philosophy produce knowledge; and whether philosophers have special argumentative tools. These questions are discussed throughout the particular chapters, and the aim of this research is to provide partial answers to them.. (shrink)

This paper contrasts three different positions taken by 18th century British scholars on how sensations, particularly sensations of colour and touch, come to be localized in space: Berkeley's view (initiated, though not fully executed) that we learn to localize ideas of colour by associating certain purely qualitative features of those ideas with ideas of touch and motion, Hume's view that visual and tangible impressions are originally disposed in space, and Reid's view (inspired by Porterfield) that we are innately disposed (...) to refer appearances of colour to the end of a line passing through the centre of the eye and originating from the spot on the back of the retina where the material impression causing that appearance was received. Reid's reasons for rejecting the Berkeleian and Humean views are examined. It is argued that Reid's position on visual localization is ultimately driven by his dualistic metaphysical commitments rather than by an empirically grounded investigation of the phenomena of vision. To this extent, his position sits uncomfortably with his own methodological commitments. (shrink)

As an advocate of the empirical method in both science and philosophy, Reid believed that the central method for studying the mind should be internal observation, whose evidence he believed to be the most reliable in comparison with all other mental operations. The fact that his contemporary “science of mind” was not as highly developed as the natural sciences was explained by Reid to be the fault of philosophers, such as John Locke, who “confounded” two completely different powers (...) of the mind: consciousness and reflection. In this paper I will present Reid's criticism of Locke, as well as Reid's own attempt to distinguish between consciousness and reflection, and the difficulties he is facing in this process. The paper concludes that Reid failed to depart from the essential Lockean characterizations of inner awareness, because of his failure to dissociate from premises he shares with Locke – such as the belief that we are conscious of all our thoughts, and the primacy of the introspective method in studying the mind. Therefore, while narrowing his concept of consciousness to an internal-sense, perceiving only present mental operations, he broadens respectively his concept of reflection. (shrink)

In his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Thomas Reid offers a barrage of objections to the view, held by David Hume, that conceivability implies possibility. In this paper, I present Reid's first two objections to the ‘maxim of conceivability’ and defend Hume from them. The first objection concerns our ability to understand impossible claims, while the second concerns thoughts about impossible claims (such as, for instance, the thought that they are impossible). Reid's objections have special (...) force against Hume because of his commitment to analyse all operations of the understanding in terms of conception. I argue that these objections fail, on the grounds that they presuppose substantive views about language which we are not warranted in attributing to Hume. Ultimately, Reid's objections help us draw out a set of intertwined issues about the language-mind relationship in Hume. (shrink)

Postmodernism charges that sociological methods project ways of thinking and being from the past onto the future, and that sociological forms of presentation are rhetorical defenses of ideologies. Postmodernism contends that sociological theory presents reified constructs no more based in reality than are fictional accounts. Kenneth Burke's logology predates and adequately addresses postmodernism's valid charges against sociology. At the same time, logology avoids the idealistic tendencies and ethical pitfalls of radical forms of postmodernist deconstruction, which acknowledge neither pretextual and (...) extratextual worlds nor the ways in which experience is embodied. While not fully articulated. Burke's logology gives primacy to an embodied, social world prior to text (Body-as-World). Sociology can strengthen both its theoretical arsenal and its response to postmodernism by reacknowledging and reclaiming Burke's logology. (shrink)

In his discussion of results which I (with Michael Hayward) recently reported in this journal, Kenneth Aizawa takes issue with two of our conclusions, which are: (a) that our connectionist model provides a basis for explaining systematicity within the realm of sentence comprehension, and subject to a limited range of syntax (b) that the model does not employ structure-sensitive processing, and that this is clearly true in the early stages of the network''s training. Ultimately, Aizawa rejects both (a) and (...) (b) for reasons which I think are ill-founded. In what follows, I offer a defense of our position. In particular, I argue (1) that Aizawa adopts a standard of explanation that many accepted scientific explanations could not meet, and (2) that Aizawa misconstrues the relevant meaning of structure-sensitive process. (shrink)

In his 'Inquiry', Reid claims, against Berkeley, that there is a science of the perspectival shapes of objects ('visible figures'): they are geometrically equivalent to shapes projected onto the surfaces of spheres. This claim should be understood as asserting that for every theorem regarding visible figures there is a corresponding theorem regarding spherical projections; the proof of the theorem regarding spherical projections can be used to construct a proof of the theorem regarding visible figures, and vice versa. I reconstruct (...) Reid's argument for this claim, and expose its mathematical underpinnings: it is successful, and depends on no empirical assumptions to which he was not entitled about the workings of the human eye. I also argue that, although Reid may or may not have been aware of it, the geometry of spherical projections is not the only geometry of visible figure. (shrink)

Even though the philosophy of common sense is not justifi able as such, the assump- tion upon which it rests, namely that there are things which we are not in position to doubt is correct. The reason why Thomas Reid was unable to bring this assumption out in a justifi able manner is that his views, both on knowledge and nature, are to be considered dogmatic. American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey on the other hand, (...) may be seen as offering us a ‘critical’ and post-Darwinian philosophy of common sense. (shrink)

This book offers a thorough account of Thomas Reid's philosophy, focussing on his expressionist aesthetics, then traces his influence in nineteenth-century ...

My object is to question a recurrent claim made to the point that Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was hostile to ether theories and that this hostility had its source in his distinctive interpretation of the first of Newton's regulæ philosophandi. Against this view I will argue that Reid did not have any quarrel at all with unobservable or theoretical entities as such, and that his objections against actual theories concerning ether were scientific rather than philosophical, even when based on (...) Newton's first rule. I argue further that Reid's insistence on Newton's rule concerns, not direct observation, but rather the notion of explanation itself. (shrink)

My first meeting with Kenneth I nada was in 1964, when I passed through Hawai‘i, on my way back from India, at the invitation of Charlie Moore, Editor of Philosophy East and West and Director of that summer’s East-West Philosophers’ Conference. Acting for Moore, who was ill at the time of my arrival, Ken, a member of the UH Philosophy faculty, was kind enough to take me on a tour of the UH-Manoa campus; he did so with considerable good (...) will. I subsequently joined the department in 1967 and appreciated very much having Ken as a colleague. Although he left the University of Hawai‘i after ten years to join the faculty at the State University of New York in Buffalo in 1969, we had subsequent occasion to meet at .. (shrink)

Thomas Brown: Negotiating a position between Hume and Reid Content Type Journal Article Category Essay Review Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9600-y Authors Ralph Jessop, Literature & Philosophy, The University of Glasgow, Dumfries Campus, Dumfries, DG1 4ZL Scotland, UK Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

In this paper I consider Kenneth Schaffner''s(1998) rendition of ''''developmentalism'''' from the point of viewof bacteriophage biology. I argue that the fact that a viablephage can be produced from purified DNA and host cellularcomponents lends some support to the anti-developmentalist, ifthey first show that one can draw a principled distinctionbetween genetic and environmental effects. The existence ofhost-controlled phage host range restriction supports thedevelopmentalist''s insistence on the parity of DNA andenvironment. However, in the case of bacteriophage, thedevelopmentalist stands on less (...) firm ground than when organismswith nervous systems, such as Schaffner''s C. elegans, areconsidered. (shrink)

Kenneth Burke, arguably the most important American literary theorist of the twentieth century, helped define the theoretical terrain for contemporary literary and cultural studies. His perspectives were literary and linguistic, but his influences ranged across history, philosophy, and the social sciences. In this important and original study Robert Wess traces the trajectory of Burke's long career and situates his work in relation to postmodernity. His study is both an examination of contemporary theories of rhetoric, ideology, and the subject, and (...) an explanation of why Burke failed to complete his Motives trilogy. Burke's own critique of the 'isolated unique individual' led him to question the possibility of unique individuation, a strategy which anticipated important elements of postmodern concepts of subjectivity. Robert Wess's study is both a timely and judicious exposition of Burke's massive oeuvre, and a crucial intervention in current debates on rhetoric and human agency. (shrink)

According to Reid (1969, 283) motives are an ens rationis. Because of that they may influence to action, but they do not act as causes or as agents, that is motives are only advisory (cf. Seebaß 1993, 329; Lehrer 1989, 210). Instead motives presuppose an efficient cause, namely an agent (cf. Rowe 1991, chapter 4), and the agent"s freedom (Reid 1969, 284). In opposition to Leibniz (1994, 84-85) who defends subtle reasons Reid (1969) claims that motives have (...) to be conscious (cf. Seebaß 1993, 269). For to "be influenced by a motive of which I am not conscious, is, ..., an arbitrary supposition without any evidence, ... ." (Reid 1969, 285). (shrink)

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world of one of the most important and traditionally under-appreciated philosophers of the 18th century: Thomas Reid. For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely (...) remote products of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all and only those events that spring from active power and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, of endowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour and the progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behavior. (shrink)

Abstract It is argued that the scattered remarks on the fine arts made in Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764) present a conception of the relation between perception and the fine arts that is at once compatible with and different from Reid's mature theory of art in Of Taste (1785). This alternative account of art-relevant perception also points beyond the limits of a philosophy of art developed according to the traditional theory of taste dominant in 18th-century Scottish (...) aesthetic thought, and anticipates certain 20th-century theories. (shrink)

Kenneth J. Klabunde and Ryan M. Richards (Eds): Nanoscale materials in chemistry, 2nd edn Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10698-011-9131-z Authors George B. Kauffman, Department of Chemistry, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740-8034, USA Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238.