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Random Thomas Reid quotation

 


As promised yesterday.

“Let scholastic sophisters entangle themselves in their own cobwebs; I am resolved to take my own existence, and the existence of other things, upon trust; and to believe that snow is cold, and honey sweet, whatever they may say to the contrary. He must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and senses.”

Thomas Reid, being rather grouchy and Chestertonian. 

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  1. HenryDecember 17, 2025 at 7:01 AM

    Samuel Johnson said it more succinctly, and missing the point the same as Reid, when, to refute Berkeley's idealism, he struck "his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.'" (Quoting Boswell's "The Life of Johnson")

    Googling for this quotation, I discovered a Wikipedia article titled "Appeal to the stone." It begins, "Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd."

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    1. ChristopherDecember 19, 2025 at 9:19 AM

      Santayana had his own way of putting it. At the start of a book -- actually at the start of a series of books, "Here is one more system of philosophy. If the reader is tempted to smile, I can assure him that I smile with him...I am merely trying to express for the reader the principles to which he appeals when he smiles." All three lines -- Reid, Johnson, Santayana, express the rejection of the underlying (Cartesian) notion that we are obliged to reason our way out of solipsism.

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  2. HenryDecember 19, 2025 at 9:47 AM

    There was also G. E. Moore's "Here is one hand" as proof of the external world. Would you believe that there is a Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand

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