ABSTRACT
The school of thought founded by Thomas Reid (1710–96) in the second half of the XVIIIth Century was called the Scottish in accordance with its geographical place of origin and the domicile of its leading representatives. In reference to the content of its doctrine it is usually termed ‘the philosophy of common sense’. It forms a branch of the stem of British empiricism although it arose from conscious opposition to the school of empirical thought represented by Berkeley and Hume. It drew nourishment from the motives and problems of that school which it set out to combat and refute. But it was able neither to explode these motives and problems from within, nor to bring to them new nourishment from without. It contented itself with surveying and distorting the traditional problems and their solutions, but it nowhere advanced beyond the results which British philosophy reached in its classical period. It did not abandon the previous line of thought, but diverged from it and pushed into a side-track. In its systematic import it is far inferior to the great classic works of British philosophy, with which it is directly connected and apart from which it is unintelligible; in its regress to healthy human understanding it implies a relaxation of the philosophic impulse and a decline of that speculative force from: which Hume's mighty shock to thought issued. It was not adequate to the greatness of the historical situation in which it found itself and it was incapable of managing the inheritance which came to it from Hume. Thus Reid's brave struggle against Hume resulted in no proper victory over his opponent, and the answer which he gave to Hume's sceptical challenge was no help to philosophic thought, but brought it into a blind alley. Like Kant, Reid was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by Hume, but the powerful impulse which both experienced was made fruitful and directed into a new great movement of thought by the German thinker only. From Reid and his followers there came no creative renewal of thought. They remained the undistinguished successors of great men and made no considerable contributions to thought.
