Hostname: page-component-669899f699-g7b4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-28T09:56:16.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reid's response to Hume's perceptual relativity argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Lorne Falkenstein
Lorne Falkenstein*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Western University, London, Canada, N6A 3B8
*
*Email: lfalkens@uwo.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reid declared Hume's appeal to variation in the magnitude of a table with distance to be the best argument that had ever been offered for the ‘ideal hypothesis’ that we experience nothing but our own mental states. Reid's principal objection to this argument fails to apply to minimally visible points. He did establish that we have reason to take our perceptions to be caused by external objects. But his case that we directly perceive external objects is undermined by what Hume had to say about the role played by color in our perception of the primary qualities of bodies.

Keywords

ReidHumedirect realismrepresentationalismperspectivalism
Type
Perception
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 41 , Issue S1: New Essays on Reid , July 2011 , pp. 25 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berkeley, George 1709. An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. Dublin: Aaron Rhames.Google Scholar
Butler, Annemarie 2008. “Natural instincts, perceptual relativity, and belief in an external world in Hume's Enquiry.” Hume Studies 34: 115–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Ephriam 1741. Cyclopedia: or an universal dictionary of the arts and sciences. 4thed. London: D. Midwinter, et al.Google Scholar
De Bary, Philip 2002. Thomas Reid and Scepticism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
George, Rolf 2006. “James Jurin Awakens Hume from his Dogmatic Slumber.” Hume Studies 32: 141–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grandi, Giovanni 2006. “Reid's Direct Realism about Vision.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 23: 225–238.Google Scholar
[Hume, David]. 1739. A Treatise of Human Nature. Vol. 1. London: John Noon.Google Scholar
[Hume, David]. 1740. A Treatise of Human Nature. Vol. 3. London: John Noon.Google Scholar
Hume, David 1750. Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding. 2nd ed. London: A. Millar.Google Scholar
Hume, David 1777. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. In Hume, David Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. Vol. 2. London: T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Hume, David 2000. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding: A critical edition, edited by Beauchamp, Tom L. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David 2007. A Treatise of Human Nature: A critical edition, edited by Norton, David Fate and Norton, Mary J. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Keith 1989. Thomas Reid. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reid, Thomas 1764. An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Edinburgh: A. Millar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, Thomas 1785. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Edinburgh: John Bell.Google Scholar
Reid, Thomas 1997. An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, edited by Brookes, Derek Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, Thomas 2002. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, edited by Brookes, Derek Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Somerville, James 2006. “The Table, Which We See: An Irresolvable Ambiguity.” Philosophy 81: 33–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Cleve, James 2002. “Thomas Reid's Geometry of Visibles.” Philosophical Review 111: 373–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Cleve, James 2004. “Reid's Theory of Perception.” In The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid, edited by Cuneo, Terence and Woudenberg, René Van 101–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Woudenberg, René. 2000. “Perceptual Relativism, Scepticism, and Thomas Reid.” Reid Studies 3: 65–85.Google Scholar
Weldon, Susan 1982. “Direct Realism and Visual Distortion: A Development of Arguments from Thomas Reid.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 20: 355–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolterstorff, Nicholas 2001. Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, John 1983. The Sceptical Realism of David Hume. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar