Abstract
Let ontological realism be the thesis that there is a pre-existing structured world independent of consciousness. Relative to this idea, epistemological realism may be introduced as the doctrine that in thought we are capable of direct awareness of the world and of knowledge of its structure.
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Notes
This claim is made notwithstanding the attempt by Berkeley to argue that neither Plato nor Aristotle admit the existence of things other than ideas. For this somewhat unpromising interpretation of the ancients see Berkeley in Luce and Jessop (1911, pp. 317–21).
Summa Theologiae, Ia, q85, a2.
Corr (Works p. 88).
Fodor (1981, p. 225).
Schiffer (1981, p. 94).
See, for example, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, c53; and De Potentia, q7, a9.
This title is one happily embraced in Fodor (1981, p. 26).
Haldane and Ross (1967, p. 161).
Cf. Summa Theologiae Ia, a85, a2 with IP I, ii (Works p. 232); also Summa Contra Gentiles IV, c11: “some sciences are about things and others are about understood intentions” (i.e. concepts), with IP VI, i (Works p. 414) where Reid writes: “There are notions or ideas that ought to be referred to the faculty of judgment as their source… to those… capable of reflecting upon its operations they are obvious and familiar”. A proper understanding of this reflective activity provides a reply to the famous anti-abstractionist argument in Geach (1971) and to the claim therein that Aquinas is not an abstractionist. I discuss these issues in Haldane (1984).
Emphasis mine. Cited from Des Vraies et des Fausses Idees in McRae (1965, p. 181).
See Kemp Smith (1902, p. 117); and from Reid’s own period, the oft referred to comments by the unnamed translator of the 1790 edition of Buffier’s Traite des Premieres Verites.
For bibliographical information see Durkan (1950). I am grateful to the librarians of the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow for confirming that volumes of Major’s writings were in their libraries when Reid was teaching in these institutions.
Cited from Liber Terminorum, I in Broadie (1983, p. 235).
In primu Sententiarum, 3, q2. Cited by Hamilton in his notes to his edition of Reid (Works p. 815).
Wittgenstein (1976, p. 432).
The philosophical issues are further explored, with some references to the views of Aquinas and Reid, in Haldane (1987).
De Interpretatione, 16a, 2–6.
Philosophical Orations III; translated from Humphries (1. 35).
De Potentia, I, q9, a5.
Since writing this I have had the opportunity to read Broadie (1986) in which he explores parallels between the work of Major (and his circle) and the realism of Reid.
For something of the history of these subjects, see Deely (1982).
IP II, xxi (Works, p. 332). Cf. I IV, ii (Works, pp. 117–9); IP II, xx (Works, pp. 326–330); and VI, v (Works, p. 450).
De Potentia, q2, a1.
Quodlibetum, VIII, q2, a2.
Summa Theologiae, 1a, q85, a2.
Summa Theologiae, Ia, IIae, q90, a1.
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Haldane, J.J. (1989). Reid, Scholasticism and Current Philosophy of Mind. In: Dalgarno, M., Matthews, E. (eds) The Philosophy of Thomas Reid. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2338-6_18
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