•  1618
    Thomas Reid's philosophy of mind: Consciousness and intentionality
    Philosophy Compass 1 (3): 279-289. 2006.
    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 w…Read more
  •  1309
    Thomas Reid's direct realism
    Reid Studies 4 (1): 17-34. 2000.
    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 th…Read more
  •  1119
    A realism for Reid: Mediated but direct
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12 (1). 2004.
    It is commonly said of modern philosophy that it introduced a representative theory of perception, a theory that places representative mental items between perceivers and ordinary physical objects. Such a theory, it has been thought, would be a form of indirect realism: we perceive objects only by means of apprehending mental entities that represent them. The moral of the story is that what began with Descartes’s revolution of basing objective truth on subjective certainty ends with Hume’s parox…Read more
  •  663
    Reid on consciousness: Hop, hot or for?
    Philosophical Quarterly 57 (229): 613-634. 2007.
    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 sug…Read more
  •  507
    The strange Italian voyage of Thomas Reid: 1800–60
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 14 (4). 2006.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  227
    Thomas Reid on acquired perception
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (3): 285-312. 2010.
    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…Read more
  •  154
    Berkeley on the Language of Nature and the Objects of Vision
    Res Philosophica 91 (1): 29-46. 2014.
    Berkeley holds that vision, in isolation, presents only color and light. He also claims that typical perceivers experience distance, figure, magnitude, and situation visually. The question posed in New Theory is how we perceive by sight spatial features that are not, strictly speaking, visible. Berkeley’s answer is “that the proper objects of vision constitute an universal language of the Author of nature.” For typical humans, this language of vision comes naturally. Berkeley identifies two sort…Read more
  •  103
    Is Thomas Reid a mysterian?
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (3): 449-466. 2006.
    : 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 …Read more
  •  78
    Recent Anthologies on Modern Philosophy (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 36 (2): 161-172. 2013.
    Four anthologies covering the modern period are reviewed here and assessed with respect to whether anthologized selections and supplementary materials are useful to teachers and undergraduate students. With the exception of one anthology, each volume makes conservative choices in representing the modern period. Such choices reinforce a history of the modern period increasingly out of step with current scholarship and discourage scholarly teachers from presenting a history deeply embedded in scie…Read more
  •  68
    Perception and the language of nature
    In James A. Harris (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford University Press. pp. 107. 2013.
    This chapter discusses eighteenth-century British theories of perception, beginning with George Berkeley’s Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. The chapter traces Berkeley’s influence through Thomas Reid, David Hume, David Hartley, Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart. The chapter presents theories of perception in this time a place a primarily concerned with metaphysics, mind and methodology rather than epistemology.
  •  66
    Thomas Reid's Theory of Memory
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 23 (2). 2006.
  •  66
    Problems from Reid (review)
    Philosophical Review 127 (1): 117-121. 2018.
  •  54
    The early modern period is arguably the most pivotal of all in the study of the mind, teeming with a variety of conceptions of mind. Some of these posed serious questions for assumptions about the nature of the mind, many of which still depended on notions of the soul and God. It is an era that witnessed the emergence of theories and arguments that continue to animate the study of philosophy of mind, such as dualism, vitalism, materialism, and idealism. Covering pivotal figures in philosophy suc…Read more
  •  47
    Reid on the moral sense
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (S1): 80-101. 2011.
    Some interpret Reid’s notion of a moral sense as merely analogical. Others understand it as a species of acquired perception. To understand Reid’s account of the moral sense, we must draw from his theory of perception and his theory of aesthetic experience, each of which illuminate the nature and operation of the moral faculty. I argue that, on Reid’s view, the moral faculty is neither affective nor rational, but representational. It is a discrete, basic, capacity for representing the real moral…Read more
  •  46
    The History of the Philosophy of Mind is a major six-volume reference collection, covering the key topics, thinkers and debates within philosophy of mind, from Antiquity to the present day. Each volume is edited by a leading scholar in the field and comprises chapters written by an international team of specially commissioned contributors. Including a general introduction by Rebecca Copenhaver and Christopher Shields, and fully cross-referenced within and across the six volumes, The History of t…Read more
  •  37
    Reid on Language and the Culture of Mind
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2): 211-225. 2021.
    Thomas Reid draws a distinction between the social and solitary operations of mind—acts of mind that require other intelligent beings versus those that may performed on one’s own. Yet his distinction obscures the irreducibly social character of the solitary operations. This paper preserves Reid’s distinction while accommodating the social character of the solitary operations. According to Reid, the solitary operations presuppose the social operations, expressed in what he calls the ‘natural lang…Read more
  •  35
    From around 1800, shortly before Pasquale Galluppi's first book, until 1950, just before Benedetto Croce died, the most formative influences on Italian philosophers were Kant and the post-Kantians, especially Hegel. In many ways, the Italian philosophers of this period lived in turbulent but creative times, from the Restoration to the Risorgimento and the rise and fall of Fascism. From Kant to Croce is a comprehensive, highly readable history of the main currents and major figures of modern Ital…Read more
  •  33
    Thomas Reid and the Problem of Secondary Qualities by Christopher A. Shrock (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 56 (3): 566-567. 2018.
    Philosophers from the modern age and current philosophers share some common concerns. One is whether the ordinary objects of human perception—the objects humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell—exist independently of our perception of them in a shared, stable, spatially-localized environment that also exists independently of perception. Another is whether a particular range of properties—colors, flavors, odors, sounds, feels—are properties of the ordinary objects of human perception, relations …Read more
  •  30
    The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid (review)
    Philosophical Review 118 (1): 115-121. 2009.
  •  15
    Thomas Reid on Mind, Knowledge, and Value (edited book)
    with Todd Buras
    Oxford University Press. 2015.
    This volume offers a fresh view of the work of Thomas Reid, a leading figure in the history of eighteenth-century philosophy. A team of leading experts in the field explore the significance of Reid's thought in his time and ours, focusing in particular on three broad themes: mind, knowledge, and value. Together, they argue that Reid's philosophy is about developing agents in a rich world of objects and values, agents with intellectual and active powers whose regularity is productive. Though such…Read more
  •  15
    15. Benedetto Croce. History Brought Under the General Concept of Art
    In Rebecca Copenhaver & Brian P. A. Copenhaver (eds.), From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy, 1800-1950, University of Toronto Press. pp. 484-514. 2012.
  •  12
    3. Vincenzo Gioberti. The Moral and Political Primacy of the Italians
    In Rebecca Copenhaver & Brian P. A. Copenhaver (eds.), From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy, 1800-1950, University of Toronto Press. pp. 264-277. 2012.
  •  10
    2. Idealism and Sensism
    In Rebecca Copenhaver & Brian P. A. Copenhaver (eds.), From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy, 1800-1950, University of Toronto Press. pp. 7-10. 2012.