born April 26, 1710, Kincardineshire, Scot.
died Oct. 7, 1796, Glasgow
Scottish philosopher.
He served as a Presbyterian pastor from 1737 to 1751. His lengthy studies of David Hume convinced him that Hume's skepticism was false, because it was incompatible with common sense. According to Reid, both human behaviour and ordinary language provide overwhelming evidence to support the reality of a material world and the existence of an enduring self as the subject of continuously changing mental experience. His works include An Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), and Essays on the Active Power of Man (1788).