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Thomas Reid disagreed with the widely-held view that distinguishing between psychology and epistemology was equivalent to separating fact from values. Reid believed first principles are constitutive principles, prescriptive as well as descriptive, so there was no gap between fact and value.

This paper considers the views of two figures whose work falls on either side of the heyday of American pragmatism, Thomas Reid (1710-96) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The broad similarities between Reid's and (the later) Wittgenstein's views, and in particular their epistemological views, has been well documented. Here, I argue that such similarities extend to the relation in their work between common sense and the presence of elements in their thought that can be considered pragmatist in some important respect. Beginning with Reid, I argue that some specific theses commonly associated with pragmatism - e.g., that meaning, truth, or the justifiedness of a belief in a matter of practical effects or efficacy - clearly run counter to his stated views, and stand in tension with the well-known common sense character of his work. At the same time, however, and as others have noted, other pragmatist themes and ideas - e.g., about the close relations between belief (and doubt) and action, theory and practice, and facts and values - do have a clear precedent in Reid (§2). Most fundamentally, however, Reid's epistemological views in particular display an adherence to the idea that practice is somehow primary - an idea that's central to pragmatism 'broadly conceived', as Brandom calls it and, according to some others (e.g., Putnam, Cavell), to pragmatism per se. What's more, once we are clear on the respect(s) in which Reid's views do incorporate an important pragmatist element, it becomes clear that far from being at odds with, or needing supplementation by, the latter, common sense is in fact inseparable from it (§3). Finally, I turn (§4) to Wittgenstein, and suggest that the same close connection between pragmatist elements and common sense as we find in Reid is present here as well: like Reid, Wittgenstein rejects several 'narrow' pragmatist theses; but he too ascribes practice a crucial role. And while he seldom explicitly refers to common sense, the notions of good judgment, and of the reasonable person - hallmarks of common sense, as Reid conceives of it - are at the heart of Wittgenstein's later epistemological views as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Reid (1710-1796) rejected 'the theory of ideas' in favor of perceptual direct realism and a fallibilist foundationalism. According to Reid, contact with the common and public extra-mental world is as much a part of our natural psychological and epistemological starting point as whatever special type of relation we have to the contents of our own minds. Like the general perceptual and epistemological views Reid was countering, an individualistic, idea-centered approach to language and communication continues to have a grip on theorists. But Reid's heterodox counter to the latter is much less well known than his response to the former, even though it marks a complementary and equally clear departure from the views of his contemporaries. Reid holds that while mental phenomena are indeed implicated in language, the meaning of a term is the typically public object to which it directly refers. Further, Reid argues that for linguistic communication to be possible, we must already have some measure of access to other's intentional states. While we each might enjoy a special kind of access to our thoughts, they are not 'private' in any epistemologically troubling sense: the fact that we have language shows that we already have communicative abilities and an epistemological toehold with regard to other's mental states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jennifer Nagel suggests that Mercier and Sperber’s argumentative theory of reasoning can shed light on “why we commonly think of perceptually and testimonially supported judgments as justified despite feeling worried, on reflection, that only what is internally available can justify”. While I agree that there is indeed a natural path (or paths) from the argumentative theory to this asymmetry, and instability, in our epistemic judgments, I am not sure that it is quite the one that Nagel identifies. Having registered some reservations about Nagel’s account, I make an alternative suggestion as to how the argumentative theory might help to explain the naturalness of the relevant judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By Reid's own account, ‘That the natural faculties, by which we distinguish truth from error, are not fallacious’ (FP#7), has a special place among the First Principles of Contingent Truths. Some have found that claim puzzling, but it is not. Contrary to what's usually assumed, certain FPs preceding FP#7 do not already assert the better part of what FP#7 explicitly states. FP#7 is needed because there is nothing epistemological in the FPs that precede it; and its special place among the FPs is a straightforward consequence of its being both perfectly general and distinctively epistemological. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Testimony is an indispensable source of information. Yet, contrary to ‘literalism’, speakers rarely mean just what they say; and even when they do, that itself is something the hearer needs to realize. So, understanding instances of testimony requires more than merely reading others' messages off of the words they utter. Further, a very familiar and theoretically well-entrenched approach to how we arrive at such understanding serves to emphasize, not merely how deeply committed we are to testimony as a reliable source of information, but that epistemological questions about testimonial belief are – perhaps even must be – posterior to such a commitment. This result does not itself dictate any particular views on the epistemology of testimony. However, not only does the failure of literalism not support the view that the justificatory basis of testimony-based beliefs is importantly inferential; it in fact undermines a key premise in one important argument for the view that one needs independent, positive reasons for accepting a given testimonial report. More generally, the present paper illustrates how discussions of the epistemology of testimony might usefully interact with an examination of the epistemology of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the philosophical views of Thomas Reid on evidence. Definition of evidence according to Reid; Notion on self-evidence; Role of evidence on Reid's epistemology.

Introduces articles featured in the February 2005 issue of "Episteme," including the use of economic models in understanding science.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the views of philosopher Thomas Reid about perception, epistemology, and moral thought and theory, dual component theory, and Reid's first principles of contingent truths.