An Inquiry Into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common.

How we know what we feel shapes how we think about everything.

This edition of Thomas Reid’s Inquiry Into the Human Mind explores how our senses work, what they reveal about heat, cold, hardness, and softness, and how our judgments arise from more than simple sensations.

Reid argues that sensations are not the same as the real qualities of objects. He shows how heat and cold, though felt, point to unknown causes in bodies, while hardness and softness point to real properties that exist even when not perceived. The text also examines how common sense guides everyday belief, and why philosophical theories must align with how we actually experience the world.

• How heat, cold, and other sensations relate to the qualities they signify in objects.
• Why perceived hardness is a distinct sensation from the external property itself.
• How ordinary judgment and belief arise from our sensory experience, not just from comparing ideas.
• Critiques of existing philosophical theory and a defense of common sense in understanding the mind.

Ideal for readers curious about how early modern philosophy explains perception, belief, and the operations of the mind.

First published in 1764 and reissued in 1818, this work is based on lectures delivered by Thomas Reid (1710-96) at King's College, Aberdeen. Reid criticised the sceptical philosophy propagated by Descartes, Locke and Hume, arguing that our senses demonstrate that the external world must exist.