Thomas Reid (April 26, 1710 – October 7, 1796) was a Scottish philosopher and a key figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. He founded the Scottish School of Common Sense, which sought to counter David Hume's skepticism by grounding philosophy in intuitive principles of common sense. Reid studied and taught at the University of Aberdeen, later becoming Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His major works, An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense and Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, argued that perception directly grasps external objects, rejecting the theory of ideas. His ideas influenced 19th-century Scottish philosophy, French spiritualism, and 20th-century analytic philosophy.
