Avoiding Broken Noses: How 'Pragmatic' was the Philosophy of Thomas Reid? (original) (raw)

2014, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy

Abstract

The intellectual affinity between Thomas Reid, on one hand, and American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, on the other, has been noted by several scholars. Indeed, Peirce himself professed an admiration for Reid and referred to his own Pragmatism as entailing what he called “Critical Common-sensism”. In recent times, a number of scholars – chiefly Baumann, Magnus, and Lundestad – have investigated the pragmatist elements in Reid’s thought. Each has identified important ways in which Reid prefigured central themes in American pragmatist thought, though none has gone so far as to label Reid himself a pragmatist. In this paper, I demonstrate the great extent of the similarities between Reid and some of the early American pragmatists. In light of these affinities, the term “pragmatist” may, in my opinion, be helpful for categorising Reid’s thought. My central claim, however, is not merely a terminological one: Rather, I attempt to demonstrate the deep and broad intellectual affinity between Reid’s “Common Sense” philosophy and major trends in American Pragmatism, by shedding light on a number of distinct and central shared features.

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References (9)

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