Abstract
Reid had important views on language use, linguistic meaning, and the relationship between language and mind. Regarding use, he anticipated Speech Act Theory in denying that the main function of talking is conveying ideas. Instead, we frequently use language to perform social actions. On meaning, he distinguished the meaning of artificial signs, such as words, which required convention, and natural signs, such as an angry face. Among artificial signs, he further contrasted mere tags for things, “proper names,” with “general words” which have descriptive content. Finally, he stressed that what we mentally attend to in hearing speech is meaning, not sound. In effect, we seem to perceive not so much the sounds a person makes, but rather what she means thereby.
Text from the Inquiry excerpted from: Brooks, D. ed. 1997. Thomas Reid: Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Text from the Essays excerpted from: Brooks, D. ed. 2001. Thomas Reid: Essays Concerning the Intellectual Powers of Man. University Park: Penn State University Press.
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Notes
- 1.
[Christian Wolff, Psychologia Empirica … (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1737).]
- 2.
[David Hume , A Treatise of Human Nature, eds. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 1.1.l, p. 1.]
- 3.
[John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 1.1.8, p. 47.]
- 4.
[Johann Jacob Brucker, Historia philosophica doctrinae de ideis (Augsburg, 1723).]
- 5.
[Timaeus Locrus, De anima mundi (probably first century AD; Venice, 1555).]
- 6.
[See Locke, Essay, 1.1.8, p. 47.]
- 7.
[For example, “that image which is present to the mind, indeed is thrust before it almost, when we think, is customarily referred to by several other names; for it is also called idea, form [Lat. Species], and, borrowing the name from the action, concept, preconception, anticipation, innate concept (in as much as it has been acquired previously), conception, and phantasm, in as much as it has its root in the phantasy or imaginative faculty,” (Pierre Gassendi’s Institutio Logica (1658), A Critical Edition with Translation and Introduction by Howard Jones (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981), Part 1, “On Simple Imagination ,” pp. 83–84).]
- 8.
[David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, eds L.A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 3rd ed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), First Enquiry, Sect. 2, p. 18.]
- 9.
[Hume , First Enquiry, Sect. 2, p. 18.]
- 10.
[Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism, 5th edition, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1774), 2:505–536.]
- 11.
[Cicero, De officiis, trans. W. Miller (London: William Heinemann, 1961), 1.41.147, p. 151.]
- 12.
[Hume , Second Enquiry, Sect. 3, Part 2, pp. 199–201, n.1.]
- 13.
[James Harris, Hermes: Or, A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar (London, 1751), Book 1, ch. 3 and Book 3, chs 2–3.]
- 14.
[Apollonii Pergaei locorum planorum libri II, ed. Robert Simson (Glasgow, 1749).]
- 15.
[Samuel Butler, Hudibras (1663–1680), ed. J. Wilders (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), Part 2, canto 2, lines 31–2, p. 128; Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub (1704), ed. H. Davis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), Sect. E, Introduction, p. 40.]
- 16.
[Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, scene 1, line 439.]
- 17.
[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Ancient Metaphysics: Or The Science of Universals, 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1779–1799), vol. 1, ch. 1; James Harris, Hermes, Book 3, ch. 4.]
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Turri, J. (2017). Thomas Reid. In: Cameron, M., Hill, B., Stainton, R. (eds) Sourcebook in the History of Philosophy of Language. Springer Graduate Texts in Philosophy, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26908-5_32
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