The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet 1635–1699

1975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Todd Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

A Change for the Better

2020 ◽  
pp. 220-246
Author(s):  
Hsueh M. Qu
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
Epistemological Framework ◽  
Internalist Reliabilism

This chapter makes the case that Hume’s epistemological framework in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is superior to that of the Treatise of Human Nature. First, the framework of EHU 12 has strong parallels to contemporary epistemology, in contrast to the Title Principle from THN 1.4.7.11. In particular, aspects of this framework have affinities with Wright-style conservatism, and Steup’s internalist reliabilism. Second, this framework avoids the weaknesses that afflicted the Title Principle: it has adequate foundation, is able to satisfactorily reject superstition, and is founded on truth. Third, unlike its analogue in the Treatise, the epistemological framework of the Enquiry is able to offer a ‘compleat answer’ to Reid and Beattie by denying the common-sense philosophy that is the fundamental basis of their critiques of his philosophy.

Metaphysics, Moral Sense, and the Pragmatism of the Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna L. Blumenthal
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Standpoint ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

The authors of these insightful and stimulating commentaries all express skepticism about the role I assign to the Scottish Common Sense philosophy in my historical analysis, though their reasons for doing so are strikingly at odds with each other. Sarah Seo and John Witt concede the importance of the Common Sense philosophy at a theoretical level, even as they call attention to certain “competitor theories” of human nature, noting that these darker views of the self may have proved more influential in the framing of the American constitution. However, they go on to contend that all of this philosophizing about the human mind was actually of little consequence in the everyday adjudication of civil and criminal liability, as judges found more practical means of resolving “the otherwise intractable questions of moral responsibility” left unanswered by the Scottish philosophy. John Mikhail, by contrast, appears to be far more sanguine about the tractability of these questions, from a philosophical standpoint, going so far as to suggest that they were more or less resolved by British moralists before the Scottish Common Sense school even came into being. What truly set the Common Sense philosophers apart from their predecessors, and ought to determine their place in this history of ideas, Mikhail concludes, was the manner in which they contributed to the scientific process of tracing out the inner structure and innate capacities of “the moral mind”—a topic that is currently of intense interest in the cognitive and brain sciences.

Buffier, Claude (1661–1737)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Manns
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
External World ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
External Reality ◽  
The Common ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

A French Jesuit who flourished in the early eighteenth century, Buffier developed an outlook that he referred to as common-sense philosophy. While deeply influenced by the philosophies of Descartes and Locke, he saw their reliance on the testimony of inner experience to be conducive to scepticism concerning the external world. In reaction to this, he sought to establish the irrevocable claims of various ‘first truths’, which pointed towards external reality and qualified it in various respects. His work anticipates certain themes that surfaced later in the common-sense philosophy of Thomas Reid.

Ferrier, Common Sense and Consciousness

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Interesting Aspect ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Distinctive Aspect ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy ◽  
British Idealism ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Relationship

James Frederick Ferrier developed his philosophy from a common sense background. However, his rejection of common sense philosophy in particular and Enlightenment philosophy in general results in the development of a system of idealism. In his series of lectures ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness - Parts I to VII’, which appeared in Blackwoods Magazine (1838–39), he outlines the problem with modern philosophy and argues that philosophy should follow a new direction. In his view, the most peculiar and interesting aspect of humanity is consciousness. He contends that the attempt to develop a ‘science of man’ is impossible because it transforms a person into an object of study and thereby fails to capture the most distinctive aspect of humanity, namely, consciousness. According to Ferrier, philosophy should be an extension of consciousness itself; it is: ‘consciousness sublimed’. This paper will outline the central arguments in ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness’ and show that an early example of British idealism was not only developed out of the common sense tradition but shares with common sense philosophy a focus on the immediate evidence of consciousness, placing the relationship between thought and world at the centre of philosophical inquiry.

Hamilton, William (1788–1856)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.O. Mounce
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy ◽  
The Mind

Sir William Hamilton was a leading exponent of the Scottish philosophy of ‘common sense’. This philosophy had its origin in the works of Thomas Reid, but it was through Hamilton that it achieved its most subtle form and exerted its greatest influence. ‘Common-sense’ philosophy, on a superficial view, may seem to hold that philosophical problems should be settled by appealing to the commonly accepted opinions of ordinary people. But that is not what it holds. The ‘common sense’ to which it refers are certain powers and beliefs natural to the mind and therefore common alike to the learned and vulgar. Hamilton holds that these powers and beliefs can neither be doubted nor justified. They carry their own authority. This view derives its significance from a point which has often been overlooked. When we doubt or justify a belief, we stand outside that belief and compare it with the world. But the power to compare a belief with the world itself presupposes beliefs about the world. We cannot step outside all our beliefs. That is why, according to Hamilton, certain powers and beliefs must carry authority.

Fichte, Eberhard, and the Psychology of Religion

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Crowe
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
The Common

In marked contrast to much of twentieth-century psychology and philosophy, prevailing accounts of affect, emotion, and sentiment in the eighteenth century took these phenomena to be rational and, to a certain extent, cognitive.1 Because of a combination of disciplinary diffusion and general lack of physicalist assumptions, accounts of affectivity in the eighteenth century also tended to be quite flexible and nuanced. This is particularly true of an influential stream of Anglo-Scottish and German thought on morality, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion. Following Shaftesbury, many of the most prominent philosophers of the century regarded affective states and processes as playing a crucial role in accounts of value. In most cases, this tendency was combined with a sort of anti-rationalism, that is, with a tendency to minimize the role of reason in everything from common sense perceptual knowledge to religious belief. Hutcheson's moral sense theory and his well-known and influential criticisms of moral rationalism exemplify this trend.2 It is perhaps more pronounced in Lord Kames, who followed the lead of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in aesthetics, moral theory, philosophy of religion, anthropology, and history.3 In Germany, this stream of thought was quite well-received by philosophers both inside and outside the dominant Wolffian tradition.4 Particularly important and influential in this respect were Johann Georg Hamann, who drew upon Hutcheson, Hume, and the “Common Sense” school to defend a conception of faith as “sentiment (Empfindung),” and Johann Gottfried Herder, a polymath and philosophical pioneer whose work in psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, biblical criticism, and theology consistently stresses the fundamental role of passion, affect, and sensibility in every aspect of human culture.5

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