Thomas Reid: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Anatomy of the Self / Edition 1

by R.D. Gallie

Overview

I: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF REID Thomas Reid (1710-96) was born at Strachan in Kincardineshire, Scotland, not far from Aberdeen. Reid was fortunate in his family connections. For instance his mother's brother was David Gregory, Savilian professor of Astronomy at Oxford and close friend of Sir Isaac Newton. Reid entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, at the age of twelve after the usual spell in Aberdeen Grammar School. After a short period as college librarian he married his cousin Margaret Gregory, having gained the position of (Presbyterian) minister at New Machar, in the gift of King's College, Aberdeen, which he held from 1737 till 1752. Although Reid published only one paper, An Essay on Quantity, in this period he was far from intellectually idle; for one thing he familiarised himself with the works of Bishop Butler, especially The Analogy of Religion, which, together with those of Samuel Clarke and Isaac Newton, were to have a profound influence on his mature philosophy. In 1752 Reid was appointed a regent at King's College, Aberdeen. During his regency he not only founded a crucially important discussion group, 'The Wise Club', and familiarised himself with David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature both through his own reading and by exhaustive discussion of it within the group; he also wrote extensively. He composed and delivered his seminal Latin Philosophical Orations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048150953
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	01/11/2011
Series:	Philosophical Studies Series , #78
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 1998
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.02(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction. 1. Perception, Sensation and First Principles - The Ingredients of a Sense. 2. The Varieties of Causation. 3. Action, Motivation and Moral Psychology. 4. Language, Conception and Representation. 5. The Nature of Persons. 6. Moral Judgment. 7. Presenting Morality. 8. Judgment of Beauty. 9. The Sublime, the Beautiful and the Novel. Bibliography. Index.

Editorial Reviews

Studies Reid's moral philosophy and his aesthetics partly by way of an exposition and appraisal of his anatomy of the self, i.e. his division of the mind in terms of its powers and the assignment of the many principles of action to their appropriate levels. A pervasive topic is the consideration of the appropriateness of deterministic computational cognitive science models of Reid's accounts of powers introduced by John Smith III and extensively employed by Keith Lehrer in his important study of Reid's philosophy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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