Peter Baumann (Swarthmore College), "Thomas Reid, Common Sense, and Pragmatism"

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2023

By Peter Baumann

Our ordinary ways of thinking about the world use some very basic assumptions, no matter what the differences between our specific views of the world are: that there is an external world, that inductive inference is a good guide to truth, that our cognitive abilities are pretty reliable for many purposes, and so on. Philosophers have wondered whether we have good reasons to think that such basic principles are true – whether we can give an “epistemic” justification of them. Skeptics like David Hume denied this while others like Immanuel Kant proposed an epistemic justification of such basic principles.

A very interesting “third way” was proposed by Hume’s and Kant’s contemporary Thomas Reid (1710-1796). Reid presented a very broad and diverse set of “principles of common sense”. These principles are not based on experience but still contain very substantial claims about the world. While Hume thought that this combination of traits does not allow for epistemic justification, Kant developed his “strong program” of backing up such “synthetic a priori” principles. Reid differed from both, holding that the principles of common sense cannot be justified epistemically (agreeing with the skeptic here) but also don’t need to be justified (disagreeing here both with Kant and with Hume).

This view is as interesting as puzzling: Do we know that the principles of common sense are true? Do we have good reasons to believe that they are true? That one does not need to justify such principles suggests a positive answer to such questions. However, because of the lack of justification one seems to have to pay the prize of dogmatism, - of holding on to principles one cannot defend. That one cannot justify such principles, however, rather suggests a negative, skeptical answer to the above question about knowledge and justification. So, it seems that Reid presents us with a dilemma with two very bad horns: the dilemma of skepticism and dogmatism.

This paper argues that one can find the seeds of a third way, a way out of the dilemma, in Reid’s texts. The paper focuses on one particular principle: the central one claiming that there is an external world. In An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense (1764) Reid makes the following very interesting remarks about belief in this principle:

I think it would not be prudent to throw off this belief, it it were in my power. If Nature intended to deceive me, and impose upon me by false appearances, and I, by my great cunning and profound logic, have discovered the imposture, prudence would dictate to me, in this case, even to put up [with] this indignity done me, as quietly as I could, and not to call her an impostor to her face, lest she should be even with me in another way. For what do I gain by resenting this injury? You ought at least not to believe what she says. This indeed seems reasonable, if she intends to impose upon me. But what is the consequences? I resolve not to believe my senses. I break my nose against a post that comes in my way; I step into a dirty kennel; and, after twenty such wise and rational actions, I am taken up and clapped into a mad-house. (Reid, Inquiry, 169-170)

And:

I gave implicit belief to the informations of Nature by my senses, for a considerable part of my life, before I had learned so much logic as to be able to start a doubt concerning them. And now, when I reflect upon what is past, I do not find that I have been imposed upon by this belief. I find that without it I must have perished by a thousand accidents. I find that without it I should have been no wiser now than when I was born. I should not have been able to acquire that logic which suggests these skeptical doubts with regard to my senses. (Reid, Inquiry, 170)

I read this as a pragmatic rather than an epistemic justification of a principle of common sense (here, the claim that there is an external world): It doesn’t show that the principle is true or that we have epistemic reasons to believe it but rather that we have practical reasons to adhere to that principle. An outcome matrix can illustrate that common sense dominates skepticism in the sense that it never leads to worse outcomes than skepticism and under some circumstance to better outcomes:

---

Circumstances: Is there an External World?

                                                                        Yes                                     No

Common sense                                     few broken noses              nothing really

Epistemic Options

Skepticism                                             many broken noses           nothing really

---

This pragmatic or pragmatist justification of common sense of skepticism reminds one very much of Pascal’s wager or, more recently, of Hans Reichenbach’s justification of inductive inference (though not quite so much of the views of “American Pragmatists” like Charles Sanders Pierce).

This paper argues that the Reidian pragmatic argument in favor of common sense – not being an epistemic argument – would be acceptable to all kinds of skeptics: Sceptics can accept Reid’s anti-sceptical argument because they are epistemic sceptics while Reid’s argument is a pragmatic one.

---

References

Reid, Thomas, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense (ed. Derek Brookes), in: Knud Haakonssen (ed.), The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid, University Park, PA & Edinburgh: Pennsylvania State University Press & Edinburgh University Press 1997.