Abstract
Reid’s conception of his predecessors as belonging to “the Cartesian system”(1) gives him an up-to-date ring. He means not just Descartes’ immediate disciples but all adherents to the theory of ideas, including Locke, Berkeley and Hume.(2) What unites them to Descartes is more fundamental than what divides them from him. This cuts across the ingrained division of nineteenth-century German historians of philosophy into rationalists and empiricists. Reid’s account of his predecessors’ treatment of the problem of other minds, however, comes across as more traditional, for the traditional problem virtually begins with him. (3) The very words ‘other minds’ first occur extensively in his pages. It is surprising how little his predecessors — Locke(4) for instance — have to say on the subject. It is absent even in Kant. True, Descartes concludes in the haunting words of the Third Meditation that he is ‘not alone in the world’ but he is referring to God, and as an external cause not as a person.(5) Not that Reid thinks there is any problem about other minds; it is a problem, he argues, only for holders of the theory of ideas.
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Notes
He himself acknowledges Buffier’s recognition of the issue when he cites one of Buffier’s principles of common sense, namely, “That there are other beings and other men in the universe, besides myself”. IP, VI, vii (Works p. 467).
T.E. Jessop cites the Essay (IV xi 12) — see Luce and Jessop (1949), II, p. 107n.. As Locke does not qualify, ‘finite Spirits’ by ‘other’ it seems he is talking about angels. The absurdity of saying ‘we’ don’t know of their existence if they were part of us would have struck even Locke. Cf. Hutcheson’s reference to ‘Other minds’, (1973), IV, I.
Luce and Jessop (1949), II, p. 108 and III, Fourth Dialogue, 5, 6, 12.
I, V, vii (Works p. 129). Moore evidently had this passage in mind in his first reference to Reid in his 1905 paper, ‘The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception’ — reprinted in G.E. Moore, (1922), pp. 57–8.
Again, there are some hints; see Hume (1888), I iv 7, paragraphs 2, 8, 10. Hume isn’t denying the self exists, as Reid says IP, II, xii (Works p. 293), only the self conceived as a Cartesian substance distinct from any impressions and ideas.
Ibid. (Works p. 465).
I, VII (Works p. 207); Cf. IP, V, iii (Works p. 432).
IP, II, xi (Works p. 288); Cf. I, VII (Works p. 208). Cf. also Berkeley (1949), II, p. 211.
Kames (1779), p. 270.
See Berkeley (1949), II, pp. 44, 51f, 52f, 80.
Ibid. (Works p. 289).
Cf. Berkeley (1949), II, pp. 233–4.
Kames (1779), p. 252.
Berkeley (1940), II, p. 247; Cf. IP, II, x (Works pp. 284–5).
Unlike Kames, Reid does not tar Berkeley with atheism. Berkeley’s doctrine, Karnes charges, “if it should not lead to universal scepticism, affords at least a shrewd argument in favour of Atheism” (1779, p. 252).
Ibid. (Works p. 449).
Berkeley (1949), II, p. 233.
Ibid. (Works p. 459).
Ibid. (Works p. 482).
Ibid. (Works p. 481).
Hume (1975), IV ii, section 29.
Hume (1975), IV i, section 22.
Ibid. (Works p. 458); Cf. IP, I, v (Works p. 239).
Cf. the First Dialogue: “the senses perceive nothing which they do not perceive immediately: for they make no inferences” (Berkeley (1949), II, pp. 174–5). See also I, VI, xx (Works pp. 183, 185–6); IP, II, v (Works pp. 259–60); IP, II, xiv (Works p. 303); IP, IV, xx (Works p. 328).
Ibid. (Works p. 448).
Berkeley (1949), II, pp. 203–4.
Ibid., p. 204.
Berkeley (1949), I, pp. 265–6.
Berkeley (1949), I, p. 264.
Berkeley (1949), I, p. 273.
Berkeley (1949), II, p. 203.
Broad (1925), p. 324.
Though Berkeley himself slips into the ordinary sense of ‘immediately’ — see Berkeley (1949), I, p. 174; p. 191 does not have this sense.
As with Hume it is often unclear whether ‘reasoning’ includes inductive reasoning. At times Reid seems to mean a priori, demonstrative reasoning, sometimes expressly (Works pp. 110, 122, 124, 332, 458, 460), sometimes implicitly (Works pp. 117, 121, 125, 448–9, 450, 665), opposed to ‘experience’. At other times he seems to include inductive reasoning within ‘reasoning’ (Works pp. 188, 193, 199, 244, 481–2). Hume, when he is careful, rejects the contrast between ‘reason’ and ‘experience’ as ‘superficial’ — Hume (1975), V i note.
IP, I, vi (Works p. 241); Cf. Hume (1978), Introduction, p. xvi.
Ibid. (Works pp. 209–10).
Ibid. (Works p. 420); Cf. IP, I, v (Works p. 239), IP, VI, v (Works p. 443).
I, I, ii (Works p. 98). In his index Hamilton, referring to Works pp. 97 and 98, states that mind can only be studied in one way, by observation and experiment (Works p. 1005). Reid in fact says “nature’s works” (Works p. 97); but contrast I, V, iii (Works p. 122) on the method of “our philosophy concerning the human mind”.
Ibid. (Works p. 460).
I, V, vii (Works p. 129). Cf. Moore: “I can know things, which I cannot prove”, ‘Proof of an External World’ in (1959), p. 150.
Cf. Reid on the absurdity of Descartes’ attempt to prove the existence of the material world, IP, I, vi (Works pp. 241–2).
Ibid. (Works p. 185). Cf. Gilbert Ryle, ‘Sensation’ in (1971), II, pp. 343–5. Ryle’s example is similar to one of Reid’s (loc.cit.).
Ibid. (Works p. 450); Cf. IP, II, xxi (Works p. 332).
IP, VIII, i (Works p. 492), Cf. Hutcheson (1973), I VII, II.
Ibid. (Works p. 502).
Berkeley (1949), III, Fourth Dialogue, 6, 7.
Cf. Austin’s charge that Berkeley confused ‘sign of and ‘sign for’ — Austin (1970), p. 126.
Karnes closes his essay, ‘Veracity of the External Senses’ with “a comparison between the evidence of our senses and that of human testimony” (1779 p. 261).
Cf. Austin, (1962), p. 11; and (1970), p. 48 and p. 97.
‘A Defence of Common Sense’, in (1959), pp. 42–3; but contrast ‘Hume’s Philosophy’, in (1922), pp. 158–9.
Cf. Moore, ‘The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception’, in (1922), p. 42.
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Somerville, J. (1989). Making Out the Signatures: Reid’s Account of the Knowledge of Other Minds. In: Dalgarno, M., Matthews, E. (eds) The Philosophy of Thomas Reid. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2338-6_16
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