ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the period preceding the appearance of Immanuel Kant's first Critique and Prolegomena. It shows the central importance of Scottish common sense for the German attempt to create an empirical rationalism. The book argues that the Scottish influence was of importance especially with regard to the theory of common sense and the theory of ideas, and thus also with regard to the German views of skepticism and idealism. The Germans, like the Scots, were aiming at some sort of common-sense realism. But they could not accept the Scottish theory without modifications. Scottish philosophy in the eighteenth century is usually taken to refer to Common-sense philosophy, or the theory put forward by Thomas Reid and his followers. And in this sense it is just as unproblematic as is the discussion of particular German and Scottish thinkers.
