Thomas Reid And Idealism

Thomas Reid is one of the important philosophers in the history of the Western philosophy. The main problems which his philosophy want to solve is the fallacy caused by the’theory of ideas’. Modern philosophy from Descartes started brought the’theory of ideas’in order to look for the solid foundation of the system of human being knowledge. However, due to the defects of’the theory of Ideas’, this goal not only failed to be achieved, but also fall into the abyss of skepticism. The birth of Hume’s philosophy not only could not stop the development of the ’the theory of ideas’, but also caused an unprecedented crisis of the philosophical circles. According to the development of the assumption that hidden in such’the theory of ideas’, not only the human knowledge was not reliable, but also the outside world and their own existence has become a problem.What the first objective of the Reid’s was to solve the crisis caused by Hume. He drawed a conclusion that Hume’s argument was logical and without flaws after examining the Hume’s philosophy. He thought the reason why leading to the skepticism was the philosophers insisted on the assumption of the’the theory of ideas’. Thus he concluded:the fact that the development of modern philosophy deviated from the expected trajectory of the philosopher was the resulted from the assumption of’the theory of Ideas’. The theory itself has many errors. It was not impossible to realize the dream of the philosopher that looking for the solid foundation of the system of human being knowledge.Because’the theory of ideas’can not meet the wish of philosophers. Thus Reid gave a new interpretation to theory of perception mechanism that is so called’theory of natural signs’, as an alternative to that proposed by the’theory of ideas’. Besides, he also try to eliminate the impact of skepticism by ’theory of natural signs’.In the long period, the field of philosophy more debate Kant than Reid in the question how to answer the ’Hume’s problem’. The paper try to sketch out the Reid’s answer to" Hume’s problem" by analysis of ’theory of ideas’as an opportunity, which found an enlightening thing.The following is the basic framework of my thesis:The first chapter examines the basic content of’the theory of ideas’.It introduces the historical development process of’the theory of ideas’and the basic ideas, which focusing on the debate the relationship between idealism and’the theory of ideas’. The analysis shows that: because’the theory of ideas’contains the seeds of skepticism, so it can fall into skepticism in the end.The second chapter to explain Reid’s Critique of’the theory of ideas’, which is part of the ’broken’. He analyzed the root cause and the reason why it was wrong of’the theory of ideas’. Finally, he thought ’the theory of ideas’has limitation in theory.It also has no value in fact. Moreover,’the theory of ideas’violate s the common sense of human being.The third chapter explains Reid’s answer to’the theory of ideas’, which is part of’rebuilding’. Because the fact that ’the theory of ideas’ fall into skepticism broken the philosopher’s dream that try to look for the solid foundation of the system of human being knowledge. Thus Reid gave a new interpretation to theory of perception mechanism that is so called "theory of natural signs", as an alternative to that proposed by the ’theory of ideas’.The forth chapter analysis the rationality and limitation by reviewing the Reid’s opinion of "the theory of natural signs".