Common Sense and Science from Aristotle to Reid

Benjamin W. Redekop

Description

Brings to light the dynamic and evolving relationship between common sense and scientific thinking from Aristotle to the present day

While the dynamic relationship between common sense and science has gone largely unrecognized in the history of ideas, Common Sense and Science from Aristotle to Reid reveals that thinkers have pondered the nature of common sense and its relationship to science and scientific thinking for a very long time. It demonstrates how a diverse array of neglected early modern thinkers turn out to have been on the right track for understanding how the mind makes sense of the world and how basic features of the human mind and cognition are related to scientific theory and practice. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and scholarship from the history of ideas, cognitive science, and the history and philosophy of science, this book helps readers understand the fundamental historical and philosophical relationship between common sense and science.

The story begins in the ancient world, where “scientific” knowledge (epistêmê in Greek, scientia in Latin) arose in counterpoint to everyday understanding and common opinion, until Aristotle produced a reconciliation of the two that set the course for scientific thought for the next two millennia. It then moves into the early modern period, when the New Science of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton emerged triumphant, and common sense and its relationship to science once again became problematic, remaining so to this day. The book goes on to examine this fraught relationship, and the early modern thinkers who sought to repair it, culminating in the thought of the philosopher Thomas Reid (1711–1796), the preeminent figure in the Scottish school of common sense philosophy. A comprehensive epilogue brings the story into the present. It is a story full of fascinating twists and turns, but ultimately a tale about the perennial quest to understand how the human mind is able to gain credible and reliable knowledge about the self, nature, other human beings, and God.

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Common Sense and Scientific Thinking before Copernicus; 2. The Challenge of Modern Science and Philosophy; 3. Common Notions, Sens Commun: Herbert of Cherbury and Renè Descartes; 4. Hobbes, Locke, and Innatist Responses to Skepticism and Materialism; 5. Common Sense in Early Eighteenth-Century Thought; 6. Common Sense and Moral Sense: Buffier, Hutcheson, and Butler; 7. Common Sense and the Science of Man in Enlightenment; Scotland: Turnbull and Kames; 8. Common Sense, Science, and the Public Sphere: The Philosophy of Thomas Reid; Epilogue; Notes; Index.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• PHILOSOPHY
• Sciences et techniques
• Reino Unido
• Philosophy of science
• United Kingdom
• History of Europe
• Epistemology
• Great Britain
• Royaume-Uni
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785275517
• Langue: English

Extrait

Common Sense and Science from Aristotle to Reid
Common Sense and Science from Aristotle to Reid
Benjamin W. Redekop
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
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Copyright © Benjamin W. Redekop 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020946322
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-549-4 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-549-6 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
Front cover: block cut by William Harcourt Hooper, after Edward Burne-Jones © The Trustees of the British Museum.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Common Sense and Scientific Thinking before Copernicus
2. The Challenge of Modern Science and Philosophy
3. Common Notions, Sens Commun : Herbert of Cherbury and Renè Descartes
4. Hobbes, Locke, and Innatist Responses to Skepticism and Materialism
5. Common Sense in Early Eighteenth-Century Thought
6. Common Sense and Moral Sense: Buffier, Hutcheson, and Butler
7. Common Sense and the Science of Man in Enlightenment Scotland: Turnbull and Kames
8. Common Sense, Science, and the Public Sphere: The Philosophy of Thomas Reid
Epilogue
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has benefited from the insights and encouragement of many people and the support of a variety of institutions. I wish to thank former president Gordon Johnson and the fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge, for support at the start of this project when I was a research fellow of the College. The late Istvan Hont was an important intellectual mentor during my time at Cambridge and I am most grateful that he took me under his wing during those years. The Cambridge University Library staff was very helpful, as were the staff of King’s College, Aberdeen; the University of British Columbia; Oxford University; and the University of Michigan. Gordon Graham, Paul Gorner, and Maria-Rosa Antognazza provided help and guidance as this project was first germinating. I would also like to thank John Wright, Terence Cuneo, René van Woudenberg, Richard Little, and Rebecca Copenhaver for feedback on segments of this work. Paul Wood and Knud Haakonssen provided help, support, and guidance along the way, and their intellectual contributions to the topics covered in this book will be evident to readers who know their work. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who took the time to review and make thoughtful comments and suggestions on the proposal and draft manuscript.
At Christopher Newport University I have received helpful feedback and experienced friendly collegiality from Brent Cusher, Nathan Harter, Bob Colvin, Quentin Kidd, Ed Brash, Roberto Flores, and Jon White, among others. Harvey Mitchell, Stephen Straker, and Allan Smith at the University of British Columbia provided important intellectual guidance and support during my years there. I have benefited from many conversations about cognitive science and cognitive psychology with my good friend Jim Enns, often in the midst of rock-climbing expeditions. I owe a debt of gratitude to Steven Spalding, who provided research and translation assistance with some of the French language sources used in this book. Thanks to Michael Callahan for sharing his friendship and love of history over many years. Ben Lynerd provided very helpful advice and encouragement as this project was nearing its end, and longtime friend Doug Balzer kept me going with regular reminders that I needed to finish the dang thing so he could read it. I would like to thank my wife Fran and daughter Katarina for their love and support during the two decades in which this book took shape. Finally, Ed Hundert deserves my highest gratitude for his long-standing support and mentorship. His stamp on my thinking and approach to intellectual history is doubtless evident on every page of this book, and it is to him that this book is dedicated.
Research for this book was supported by grants and fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Kettering University, and Wolfson College, Cambridge. Research and writing was made possible by sabbaticals funded by Kettering University and Christopher Newport University. Parts of Chapter 2 , Chapter 8 , and the Epilogue were originally published in the following works, reprinted here with permission: Benjamin W. Redekop, “Thomas Reid and the Problem of Induction: From Common Experience to Common Sense,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 33A.1 (2002): 35–57; Benjamin W. Redekop, “Common Sense and Science: Reid Then and Now,” Reid Studies 3.1 (1999): 31–47; Benjamin W. Redekop, “Reid’s Influence in Britain, Germany, France, and America,” in Terence Cuneo and René van Woudenberg (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 313–39.
INTRODUCTION
Thinkers have been pondering the nature of common sense, and its relationship to science and scientific thinking, for a very long time. In the ancient world, “scientific” knowledge ( epistêmê in Greek, scientia in Latin) emerged as a counterpoint to everyday understanding and common opinion, until Aristotle produced a reconciliation of the two that set the course for scientific thought for the next two millennia. It was not until the early-modern period, when the New Science of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton emerged triumphant, that common sense and its relationship to science again became problematic, remaining so to this day. This book is about this fraught relationship and about the early-modern thinkers who sought to address it, culminating in the thought of the philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–1796), the preeminent figure in the Scottish school of common-sense philosophy. It is a story full of fascinating twists and turns but is ultimately about the perennial quest to understand how the human mind is able to gain credible and reliable knowledge about the self, nature, other human beings, and God.
It is my contention that if we can understand the historical interplay between common sense and science, and the emergence of “common sense” as a contested term in scientific and philosophical discourse, we will have a better grasp of some of the fundamental and enduring problems besetting the relationship between science and society, that is, the problem of the public understanding of science. In some parts of the world, including particularly the United States, questions that have been long settled in the scientific community—for example, global warming, evolution by natural selection, the value of vaccines—remain controversial in the larger public arena. A disconcerting gap persists between everyday knowledge and understandings, and well-established scientific theories and facts. While there are many factors—economic, religious, political—contributing to this state of affairs, it builds upon a mismatch between our everyday, commonsensical judgments and intuitions, and the discoveries and methods of modern science. This book helps readers to better understand the fundamental contours of this relationship and why common sense and science may not be at odds after all.
The modern philosophical conception of common sense arose in response to the skepticism and materialism unleashed by thinkers steeped in the methods and perspectives of the New Science, as part of a broad effort to connect higher thought with everyday perceptions and processes of the human mind, and by extension to the rising “commons” of Europe and America. This dynamic relationship between common sense and the rise of modern science has gone largely unrecognized in the history of ideas, and this study aims to bring it to light, while also providing an overview of the common-sense philosophical tradition—in all its various and sundry forms—that stretches all the way from Aristotle to the present day.
“Common sense,” as a term of both popular and elite discourse, therefore has a history, and that history is related, at least in part, to modern science and the philosophical systems that arose along with it. This book tells that story, and it does so by taking seriously thinkers who have often received short shrift in the history of ideas. Until quite recently, many of the thinkers covered in this book have garnered little attention from scholars, despite the fact that some of the principal ideas and perspectives of this intellectual tradition have been validated by modern scientific research (discussed further in the Epilogue). Towering figures like Plato, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume thus play a supporting role in this story, having to make way for neglected yet notable thinkers such as Herbert of Cherbury, Henry More, Robert Ferguson, Henry Lee, Claude Buffier, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, George Turnbull, Lord Kames, and Thomas Reid, among many others.
These latter thinkers form part of a long tradition of reflection on the important question of common sense and its relationship to science and hig