Thomas Reid (April 26th 1710 with Strachan - October 7th 1796 with Glasgow) is a Philosophe Scottish contemporary of David Hume, founder of the Scottish school of Philosophie.

Thomas Reid passes his youth to Aberdeen, where he teaches 1752 with 1764. He creates there an association literary and philosophical appleée the Club of Wise the and conceives there the first part of its work. In 1764, it replaces Adam Smith with the Université of Glasgow and publishes its Recherche on the human understanding according to the principles of the common direction .

According to him, the good sense, with the philosophical direction of the term, is, or at least should be, at the base of any philosophical research. He preaches the direct Réalisme, or realism of the good sense, being opposed in that to the ideas of Locke and Descartes, like with almost all the modern philosophers come after them. Its theories are very received and Hume corrects the first manuscript of its Recherche .

Its theory of knowledge strongly influenced its theory of morals. According to him, all epistemology must lead to a practical ethics: when philosophy confirms our beliefs, it any more but does not remain to act consequently, because we know what is right. Its moral philosophy points out the Stoïcisme the Old ones (it often quotes Cicéron from which it borrows the term sensus communis via the Scolastique and Thomas d' Aquin) as well as Christian ethics.

Its fame is entâchée by the attacks of Kant and John Stuart Mill, but one continues nevertheless to teach his philosophy in the universities of North America at the 19th century. George Edward Moore gave again a certain notoriety to him by recommending the good sense like method or philosophical criterion and, more recently, certain philosophers such as William Alston and Alvin Plantinga were interested in him.

Works

• Research on the human understanding according to the principles of the common direction (1764)
• Tests on faculties of the human spirit (1785)
• Tests on active faculties (1788)

In French, a translation was given complete Œuvres of Thomas Reid by Theodore Jouffroy (Paris, 2° edition in 1828).

See too

• Philosophy of perception

External bonds

• Reid Project of the university of Aberdeen
• Encyclopedia of philosophy of Stanford