Thomas Reid and the trustworthiness of our faculties
Lately, I’ve been doing some reading on Thomas Reid and his attack on the “way of ideas,” and I stumbled upon an interesting argument of his for the justification of our belief in world of mind-independent bodies on the basis of the “original principles of our constitution.”
According to Reid, we are just set up in such a way that sensations give rise to the conception of and belief in the existence of mind-independent bodies. But how are these beliefs justified? After all, as you will recall, even Hume seems to have suggested something of this sort—that is, that a certain “natural instinct” in us leads us in an irresistible manner from the one to the other—but he went on to conclude that these beliefs of ours are in fact not justified. How, then, might Reid account for the justifiability of our belief in the existence of the external world?
First, Reid divides those skeptics that might ask such a question into two sorts: “thorough and consistent sceptic[s]” and “semi-sceptics” [1]. Thorough and consistent skeptics will not count anything as knowledge until the faculty responsible for the formation of the belief is proven reliable. “Of course, nothing can be proven or shown until some belief is accepted, so a thorough skeptic . . . will end up not believing anything” [2]. Reid is quite uninterested in thorough and consistent skeptics, saying of such a person, “he must even be left to enjoy his scepticism” [3].
His reply to semi-skeptics is a bit more substantial and innovative. According to Reid, semi-skeptics choose to accept one or more sources of belief before they have been proven reliable, and hold the other sources up to that standard. For instance, “Hume has assumed that the deliverances of consciousness and reasoning are trustworthy” [4]. But, Reid points out, the semi-skeptic’s choice of which faculty to favor (and which to be skeptical of) is entirely arbitrary. Reid, in dialogue with such a skeptic:
Reason, says the skeptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, Sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception; they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another [5].
As he seems to have figured, we’re faced with three options: either (a) trust out faculties from the start until we’re given sufficient reason for withdrawing this trust [6]; (b) distrust our faculties from the start (i.e., thorough and consistent skepticism); or (c) begin with an unjustified and entirely arbitrary partiality toward some faculties. And obviously, Reid considered the first to be the only sensible option. So Reid’s account of the justifiability of our belief in an external world rests upon the claim that we’ve no greater reason to trust (or doubt) the beliefs formed by reason than we do the beliefs formed by perception. Or, as Lehrer puts it, the justification of such beliefs “is their birthright” [7].
I think it works.
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[1] Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Derek Brookes, ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), V, vii, 71.
[2] Keith DeRose, “Reid’s Anti-sensationalism and His Realism,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 98, No. 3 (July 1989), 328.
[3] Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, reprinted in Thomas Reid, The Works of Thomas Reid, William Hamilton, ed., 5th Ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1958), VI, v, 447.
[4] Keith Lehrer, “Conception without Representation—Justification without Inference: Reid’s Theory,” Nous, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1989 APA Central Division Meetings (April 1989), 149.
[5] Reid, Inquiry, VI, xx, 168-169.
[6] And, as Reid takes great pains to prove, the possibility of error and phenomena such as perceptual relativity are hardly sufficient reasons.
[7] Lehrer, 149.