Judgment and Practice in Reid and Wittgenstein

This paper considers the views of two figures whose work falls on either side of the heyday of American pragmatism, Thomas Reid (1710-96) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The broad similarities between Reid’s and (the later) Wittgenstein’s views, and in particular their epistemological views, has been well documented. Here, I argue that such similarities extend to the relation in their work between common sense and the presence of elements in their thought that can be considered pragmatist in some important respect. Beginning with Reid, I argue that some specific theses commonly associated with pragmatism – e.g., that meaning, truth, or the justifiedness of a belief in a matter of practical effects or efficacy – clearly run counter to his stated views, and stand in tension with the well-known common sense character of his work. At the same time, however, and as others have noted, other pragmatist themes and ideas – e.g., about the close relations between belief (and doubt) and action, theory and practice, and facts and values – do have a clear precedent in Reid (§2). Most fundamentally, however, Reid’s epistemological views in particular display an adherence to the idea that practice is somehow primary – an idea that’s central to pragmatism ‘broadly conceived’, as Brandom calls it and, according to some others (e.g., Putnam, Cavell), to pragmatism per se. What’s more, once we are clear on the respect(s) in which Reid’s views do incorporate an important pragmatist element, it becomes clear that far from being at odds with, or needing supplementation by, the latter, common sense is in fact inseparable from it (§3). Finally, I turn (§4) to Wittgenstein, and suggest that the same close connection between pragmatist elements and common sense as we find in Reid is present here as well: like Reid, Wittgenstein rejects several ‘narrow’ pragmatist theses; but he too ascribes practice a crucial role. And while he seldom explicitly refers to common sense, the notions of good judgment, and of the reasonable person – hallmarks of common sense, as Reid conceives of it – are at the heart of Wittgenstein’s later epistemological views as well.

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