podcast 219 – Thomas Reid on First Principles and Common Sense – Part 1

Thomas Reid (1710-1796) was the founding figure in what came to be called “the common sense” tradition in philosophy, a tradition which lasted through most of the 19th century, in places such as Scotland, the United States, and France. Many of his ideas about theory of knowledge have been further developed recently by the leading Christian philosopher Dr. Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932).

A Christian minister in the Church of Scotland (1737-52), then a professor at the University of Aberdeen (1752-64), Reid ended his career at the University of Glasgow (1764-81). Reid is perhaps most famous for his theory of “first principles” – the view that given how God has made human beings, we naturally come to know certain truths without reasoning our way to them or constructing arguments for them. Some truths, for us, are self-evident, and don’t need arguing for, being the appropriate starting-points for arguments. In Reid’s view, we automatically form these beliefs in response to normal stimuli; he describes them as deriving from “our constitution,” that is, from how God designed the human race. We can’t argue for everything, so this idea of things known but not on the basis of other things we know seems important. Nor are all assumptions equal; it seems perfectly reasonable for us to have and even to rely on certain assumptions. Doubting everything seems neither possible for us nor desirable.

In this episode I present my abridged version of his 1785 Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay 6 (Judgement), Chapter 2 “Of Common Sense,” and Chapter 4 “Of First Principles in General.” In these chapter Reid explains what he means by “common sense,” and by “first principles,” even addressing how to approach disagreements about whether or not a certain claim is a first principle. Most of what I’ve edited out is his lengthy quotations from various authors.

How is all of this relevant to Trinity theories? I explain at the start of this episode, and I’ll say more in a future one.

Next week, Reid will try his hand at listing some important first principles.

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