Thomas Reid and the aberdeen years

The school of Common Sense Psychology generally associated with Thomas Reid can actually claim a number of Aberdeen parents and must be understood within the larger context of mid-eighteenth century Scottish intellectual developments. Concurrent with the rise of the school of Common Sense Psychology was the reform of the Aberdeen curriculum and a rededication to Baconian-Newtonian natural science. A number of leading Aberdeen academics took the initiative here, often as part of their contributions to the meetings of the “Wise Club,” which evolved into the Aberdeen Philosophical Society whose first president was Thomas Reid. A fuller appreciation of the activities of this small but influential group challenges the more or less received judgment that the Humean threat to orthodox religion was at the outset the sole or even principal inspiration behind the emergence of the Reidian school.

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• The Scottish Enlightenment and Scottish Social Thought c.1725–1915

  Open Access•John Brewer, John D Brewer•Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in…•2014

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