Thomas Reid

Thomas Reid (1710- 1796) was born in Strachan, a village in the Scottish Highlands. He studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, under George Turnbull, graduating in 1726 with an MA. He was licensed as a minister by the Church of Scotland in 1731 and he served as a pastor at the village of New Machar from 1737 to 1751. He then turned to academics, teaching at King’s College, Aberdeen, from 1751 to 1764, where he taught primarily natural philosophy (physical science), gradually developing expertise in moral philosophy, that culminated in the publication of his book Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the principles of Common Sense, and  appointment to the more prestigious Professorship of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, replacing Adam Smith.[1] In his inaugural lecture, Reid honors his predecessor Smith:

I doubt not that you are all sensible of the loss which the University, and you in particular, sustain by the resignation of the learned and ingenious gentleman who last filled this chair... I had not the happiness of his personal acquaintance, for want of opportunity; though I wished for it, and now wish for it far more than ever. But I could not be a stranger to his fame and reputation, nor to the respect with which his lectures from this chair were heard by a very crowded audience.

He resigned from this position in 1781, desiring to concentrate on writing. It should be noted that although Reid was a contemporary of Hume in age, his academic recognition and publications were at a later time frame. [2]

Next to Hume, Reid is the most celebrated Scottish philosopher of this period. He is considered the founder an approach to philosophy that is called "common sense realism", and he was triggered into it by a reaction to Hume's ideas. Because of the later time frame of Reid's publications and because of Hume's relatively early death, there was actually not much opportunity for a prolonged argument. Hume had read Reid's Inquiry with interest, and an exchange of letters through the mediations of their common friend Hugh Blair, but Hume did not live to read Reid's major works.[3]

Publications

Reid introduced most of his basic ideas in his Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the principles of Common Sense, published in 1764, beginning his controversy with Hume, but his arguments were not refined until his much later major works, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) and Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788), published after Hume had passed away in 1776.

[1] A. Campbell Fraser Thomas Reid, (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1898).

[2] Ibid., 77.

[3] Ibid., 58-60.