Thomas Reid and the Art of Philosophy

John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the University of St Andrews. 26 April 2010

Thomas Reid is one of the greatest minds Scotland has produced: a clergyman, an educator, a philosopher, a natural scientist, and a mathematician, Reid wrote in a clear, unaffected and precise style that anticipates modern prose. Noted in his own time as an important critic of the scepticism of David Hume, Reid proved to be one of the most influential figures in the shaping of philosophy and education in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After a period of some neglect he is again the subject of much interest among philosophers and historians of ideas. In this lecture Professor John Haldane will an account of Reid's life and thought, celebrating and recommending for our times his approach to understanding human beings and their place in nature.


In association with the International Association for Scottish Philosophy