common sense realism
Briefly set out (in your own words) the chief points of Reid’s position on common sense realism and critically evaluate his argument.

If you think his argument presents a highly plausible outlook, discuss in detail what you think the strongest parts of his argument are and why you think they are so, as well as anticipate and respond to one strong objection to his position.

If you think his argument presents a highly implausible outlook, discuss in detail what you think the weakest parts of his argument are and what makes them weak as well as suggest how a common sense realist (like Reid) might want to respond to these points in order to defend his or her position.

Two Questions
For those of you who are interested in the kind issues that will be raised in this course (perhaps you are trying to decide whether this course, or taking a philosophy course in general, is your cup of tea) here are two basic questions that will provide the basic focus for this course:
1. What do I know?
2. How do I know it?
At first these questions do not seem very remarkable. In fact, these particular questions do not get asked very often outside of philosophy. People simply do not run around asking themselves at every turn whether they know this or that to be the case. In fact, in one sense, knowing seems to represent a rather natural relationship, so to speak, that most people have with respect to the world around them. In the course of a typical day I get out of bed, my feet hit the floor, and I walk over to the bedroom where my teenage sons are sleeping and tell them (the same thing every day) to “rise and shine”. I make my way downstairs and make myself some breakfast (cereal, toast, and coffee) and pack my son’s lunches before they head off to school. If my wife is up before me, I say good morning to her, and if my cats (Maggie and Abigail) are standing around their food dish, I make sure they are fed, especially if they are making an unusual amount of noise. Sometimes I will read for a while I enjoy my morning coffee, sometimes I will simply relax on the couch with my morning coffee and watch the local news program until my boys head off to school. At this point I usually head upstairs to my office and turn my attention to the work I have on my desk. This particular ritual, that is performed mostly out of habit since the details tend to change very little, is what could be referred to as “my morning routine”. I do not consider it special or extraordinary mainly due to the fact that almost everyone I know has a similar routine of their own.
When I say that I perform this particular routine as a matter of habit, I am not suggesting that I do it mindlessly like sleepwalking. Clearly there are certain tasks along the way that require me to think (to a greater or lesser degree) about what I am doing. If I had to leave someone in my place (if they were looking after my sons for a few days) and I found it necessary to write down all of the tasks that needed to be done as part of this routine, I would probably find it more detailed than I think, and making a “to do” list would probably require me to go back and think through the kind of information that would be needed to do these tasks, even though in my own case I have performed these tasks enough times that I do not have to think about them very much. The main point being that although my morning routine requires me to mentally process and bring a certain amount of factual information to the various tasks that I am performing, my general tendency is not to give these processes very much thought. And this, it should be pointed out, is not at all unusual. It has now become somewhat cliché to say that human beings are creatures of habit, but in this case, the saying is well grounded.