Scottish School of Common Sense
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The Scottish School of Common Sense was a school of philosophy that flourished in Scotland in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Its roots can be found in responses to the writings of such philosophers as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume, where its most prominent members were, among others, Thomas Reid and William Hamilton, who combined Reid's approach with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The peculiar influence it had on philosophers elsewhere in Europe, not to mention in the United States, exemplified by the American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce, is of a considerable magnitude.
One central concern of the school was to defend "common sense" against philosophical paradox and scepticism. It argued that common-sense beliefs govern the lives and thoughts even of those who avow non-commonsensical beliefs and that matters of common sense are within "the reach of common understanding".[citation needed] The qualities of its works were not generally consistent; Edward S. Reed writes, e.g., "[Whereas] Thomas Reid wished to use common sense to develop philosophical wisdom, much of this school simply wanted to use common sense to attack any form of intellectual change."[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- ^ Edward S. Reed, The Necessity of Experience, p. 16. Yale University Press, 1996.
- S. A. Grave, "Common Sense", in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (Collier Macmillan, 1967).
- Peter J. King, One Hundred Philosophers (2004: New York, Barron's Educational Books), ISBN 0-7641-2791-8.
