[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
and a real belief of their being fallacious cannot be maintained
for any considerable time by the greatest skeptic, because it is
doing violence to our constitution. It is like a man s walking upon
his hands, a feat that some men upon occasion can exhibit; but
no man ever made a long journey in this manner. Cease to admire
his dexterity, and he will, like other men, betake himself to his
legs (EIP VI, v [448a]).
One can imagine two very different pieties evoked by this
214 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
account of our human condition. The Nietzschean piety of railing
against that darkness which is the mystery at the core of our exis-
tence.13 And a Christian (Jewish, Muslim) piety that rests content
with that trust which it is our nature to exhibit in the face of the
mystery. That latter, as we shall see in more detail in our final
chapter, was Reid s piety. I rest contented, and quietly suffer
myself to be carried along . . . (IHM VI, xx [183b 184a; B 169]).
It s no wonder that philosophers have tried either to ground
perceptual and memorial beliefs in reason or to throw them off.
Reason is the faculty wherein they assume a superiority to the
unlearned. The informations of sense are common to the philoso-
pher and to the most illiterate: they put all men upon a level, and
therefore are apt to be undervalued by philosophers (EIP II, xxii
[339a]). But the wise and the humble will receive [even the
knowledge they cannot account for] as the gift of Heaven, and
endeavour to make the best use of it (EIP II, xx [330b]).
13
Though there is a great deal of railing against the darkness in Nietzsche, it was proba-
bly not his final position. That final position is astonishingly close to Reid s. Two pas-
sages, called to my attention by Gordon C. F. Bearn, can be cited to put the point nicely.
First a passage from The Birth of Tragedy (1872) which, in Nietzschean manner, echoes
Reid s insistence on the limits of reason:
But science, spurred by its powerful illusion [that by using the thread of causality
it might be able to penetrate the deepest abysses of being] speeds irresistibly toward
its limits where its optimism, concealed in the essence of logic, suffers shipwreck.
For the periphery of the circle of science has an indefinite number of points; and
while there is no telling how this circle could ever be surveyed completely, noble
and gifted men, nevertheless reach, ere half their time and inevitably, such bound-
ary points on the periphery from which one gazes into what defies illumination.
When they see to their horror how logic coils up at these boundaries and finally
bites its own tail suddenly the new form of insight breaks through, tragic insight
which, merely to be endured needs art as a protector and remedy (para. 15,
Kaufmann tr.).
And then a passage which echoes, again in Nietzschean manner, Reid s piety :
A step further in convalescence: and the free spirit again draws near to life slowly,
to be sure, almost reluctantly, almost mistrustfully. It again grows warmer around
him, yellower, as it were; feeling and feeling for others acquire depth, warm breezes
of all kinds blow across him. It seems to him as if his eyes are only now open to
what is near [das Nahe]. He is astonished and sits silent: where had he been? These
near, nearest things: how changed they seem! what bloom and magic they have
acquired! . . . How he loves to sit sadly still, to spin out patience, to lie in the sun!
Who understands as he does the happiness that comes in winter, the spots of sun-
light on the wall! They are the most grateful animals in the world, also the most
modest, these convalescents and lizards again half turned towards life: there are
some among them who allow no day to pass without hanging a little song of praise
on the hem of its departing robe (from para. 5 of Nietzsche s new preface to the
first volume of the two volume [1886] republication of Human, All Too Human).
chapter ix
Common Sense
Reid s philosophy became known far and wide as Common Sense
Philosophy. That was its great misfortune. Which philosopher
except for Reid himself and a handful of his followers wishes to
be known among his fellow philosophers as a philosopher of
common sense? Recall Kant s caustic comments in the Introduc-
tion to his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics:
It is indeed a great gift of God to possess . . . plain common sense. But
this common sense must be shown in action by well-considered and rea-
sonable thoughts and words, not by appealing to it as an oracle when
no rational justification for one s position can be advanced. To appeal
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
