Stoic News

By Dave Kelly

Saturday, October 03, 2026

CPA Run — Thomas Reid — Version 1.0

 

CPA Run — Thomas Reid — Version 1.0

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) v1.2. Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Corpus opened for this run: the CPA v1.2 instrument document, CPA Run — John Sellars — Version 1.0 (for form), CPA Run — W.D. Ross (for precedent).

Result in brief: six Aligned, No Dissolution, and five divergences from the chain that the six criteria do not reach.

What Is the Classical Presupposition Audit?

The Classical Presupposition Audit identifies the presuppositions a named public figure must hold in order to argue as he does, and audits those presuppositions against the six classical commitments: substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, foundationalism, correspondence theory of truth, and moral realism. The subject of analysis is the figure’s own argumentative record. The CPA issues findings about what that record requires at the level of embedded presupposition, and about what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes up his framework as a governing account of his condition. It issues no findings about his inner life, his sincerity, or the correctness of his scholarship or policy.

Subject and Locus

Thomas Reid (1710–1796), Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow. The locus is his three published works: An Inquiry into the Human Mind (IHM, 1764), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (EIP, 1785) and Essays on the Active Powers of Man (EAP, 1788). Unpublished papers and letters are outside it.

Step 0 — Protocol Activation

  • Corpus: the CPA v1.2 instrument document and the two reference runs named above were opened. No document on the CPA corpus list was opened. Governing propositions are taken from CPA v1.2 §IV.
  • Reid’s texts were opened in Jonathan Bennett’s edition, which modernizes the wording and keeps Reid’s essays, parts and chapters. Checked there: EIP III.iv, VI.iv and VI.vi; IHM VI.xx; EAP III.iii.i, iii, iv and vii; EAP IV.i and IV.iv; EAP V.i, ii, v and vii.
  • Not reached in Reid’s text: EAP III.ii.vi on the passions, EAP III.iii.viii on the benevolent administration, the priority of duty, and the immediacy of particular moral judgments. These rest on Terence Cuneo’s Stanford Encyclopedia entry, used only to locate and confirm Reid’s own statements. The irresistibility of common-sense belief is from recall.
  • Input fit: a named figure with a published argumentative record, as in the Ross and Chisholm runs. The Political Application Constraint does not apply.

Self-Audit — Step 0:

  • Is the corpus in view? Partly; the exception is recorded here and ruled under Rulings on This Run.
  • Are the sources restricted to the figure’s own record? Yes, with the points listed above reached through a secondary source or recall; recorded and ruled below.
  • Has a prior conclusion been stated or implied? An expectation of alignment was stated before the run. It is declared and set aside.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 1.

Step 1 — Presupposition Profile

Stage A — Argumentative Record Summary. Seven presuppositions are load-bearing.

P1 — The self is an indivisible thinking thing, not the body. EIP III.iv: a man who loses a limb is the same person, and the limb was no part of him. The move: his reply to Locke on identity, which needs one continuing subject of responsibility.

P2 — The agent causes his own volitions. In free action the cause is the agent himself, not a motive (EAP IV.i), and rational motives work as advice (EAP IV.iv). The move: his rejection of what he calls the System of Necessity.

P3 — The moral faculty apprehends self-evident first principles. Every man of common understanding can know his duty, and particular moral judgments are ordinarily immediate (EAP V.i).

P4 — Knowledge rests on first principles. EIP VI.iv–v, and for morals EAP V.i: first principles are the foundation on which all moral reasoning is grounded. The move: reason and perception come from the same maker, so trusting one and not the other is arbitrary (IHM VI.xx).

P5 — Moral approbation is a real judgment, true or false. Feeling follows the judgment, not the reverse (EAP V.vii, against Hume).

P6 — Morality is not convention or sentiment. Basic moral principles are necessary truths (EIP VI.vi). They would hold even if we were constituted to feel otherwise (EAP V.vii), and justice is a natural virtue, not an artificial one (EAP V.v).

P7 — Two rational principles govern action. These are one’s good on the whole and duty (EAP III.iii.i). Duty takes priority, and the two cannot finally conflict because the world is under a benevolent administration (EAP III.iii.viii).

Stage B — Domain Mapping. There are three domains: mind and knowledge (P1, P4), action (P2, P7), and morals (P3, P5, P6). The same argument from trust in our faculties runs through all three. One tension is noted: morals has first principles, yet he likens a system of morals to botany, not geometry (EAP V.ii). Read with charity these join as foundations without a single chain. No Inconsistent finding is available. The expository exception is not invoked, because he argues throughout.

Self-Audit — Step 1:

  • Are the presuppositions drawn from his own record? Yes, subject to the Step 0 exception.
  • Was the load-bearing test applied? Yes; his theory of perception and his theism as such are excluded.
  • Was charity applied? Yes, to the botany remark.
  • Were domain variations mapped? Yes.
  • Was the expository exception handled? Not invoked.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 2.

Step 2 — Commitment Audit

C1 — Substance Dualism: Aligned. P1 states the governing proposition almost in its own terms: I am the thing that thinks, and the body is something I have. It is argued, not merely presupposed.

C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Aligned. P2 makes the agent the first cause of his choices and rejects determination by motive or prior cause. It is his most fully argued position.

C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Aligned. P3 holds moral truths known directly, before any reckoning of outcomes or consensus.

C4 — Foundationalism: Aligned. P4 gives a stopping point he treats as non-negotiable. The botany remark limits derivation within morals, not the foundations.

C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Aligned. P5 and P6 make moral claims true or false whatever anyone feels or ratifies. As with Ross, no theory of truth is developed under that name.

C6 — Moral Realism: Aligned. P6 makes moral facts objective and necessary.

Recorded, not tested. P7 and parts of P2 diverge from the chain at points the six criteria, as written, do not test.

  • Value content. Virtue is the chief good, not the only one. A first principle tells us to prefer a greater good to a less (EAP V.i), and harm to person, reputation and property counts as real injury (EAP V.v). This is against Th10 and Th12. He admires the Stoic system of morals and holds that at some points it demanded more than human nature can supply (EAP III.iii.iii).
  • Eudaimonism. One’s own good is not to be the only regulating principle of conduct (EAP III.iii.iv). The chain runs from Th1 wholly through happiness.
  • The guarantee. Duty and interest coincide through providence, which is an external. In the chain the guarantee follows from correct assent alone.
  • The passions. They are impulses that push, not judgments. This is against Th3.
  • Locus and degree of control. Liberty is a power over the determinations of the will, and it can be impaired or lost through sickness or vicious habit (EAP IV.i), while common-sense belief is irresistible. The governing proposition places control in assent alone. The reading that control has no degrees is taken from the C2 study note, which was not reopened for this run.

Against the first of these stands one passage. He ranks the consciousness of integrity above every other enjoyment because it is in our power and “proof against all accidents of time and fortune” (EAP III.iii.vii).

Self-Audit — Step 2:

  • Were all presuppositions audited? Yes.
  • Was Non-Operative used to avoid a Contrary? No.
  • Were findings distributed for balance? No; six Aligned is what the criteria return.
  • Were findings issued outside the corpus’s domain? No.
  • Would the same findings issue for an unsympathetic figure? Yes.
  • Was an Inconsistent finding available? No.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 3.

Step 3 — Dissolution Finding

C1 is Aligned and C2 is Aligned.

Finding: No Dissolution.

The framework supplies both gates by explicit argument: a self that is not the body, and an agent who originates his choices. This is a finding about the framework, not about Reid’s inner life, and it is not a political verdict.

Self-Audit — Step 3:

  • Does the finding follow mechanically from Step 2? Yes.
  • Does the Partial Dissolution sub-case apply? Not applicable.
  • Is it stated of the framework? Yes.
  • Is it philosophical, not political? Yes.
  • Was any Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2 present? No.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 4.

Step 4 — Summary Finding

Part A — Commitment Pattern.

  • C1 — Substance Dualism: Aligned
  • C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Aligned
  • C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Aligned
  • C4 — Foundationalism: Aligned
  • C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Aligned
  • C6 — Moral Realism: Aligned

Overall pattern: 6 Aligned, 0 Partially Aligned, 0 Contrary, 0 Inconsistent, 0 Non-Operative. The strongest alignment is C2. No divergence appears at commitment level; the divergences lie in P7 and in the locus of control, as recorded at Step 2.

Part B — Dissolution Finding. No Dissolution.

Part C — Agent-Level Implication. An agent who adopts Reid’s framework takes himself to be an indivisible self and not his body, the originator of his choices, able to know right and wrong directly, reasoning from fixed first principles about moral facts that hold whatever anyone feels. He also takes up four further things: that externals are goods of lower rank, that duty is a separate principle from his happiness, that providence reconciles the two, and that passions push from outside judgment. He holds all six commitments and does not hold the chain.

Corpus Boundary Declaration. No finding is issued on whether Reid’s reply to Hume succeeds, on his theory of perception, on his theism, or on his historical influence.

Self-Audit — Step 4:

  • Does the summary follow from the preceding steps? Yes; Part C restates the Step 2 record.
  • Is it free of political verdict? Yes.
  • Is it addressed to the adopting agent? Yes.
  • Is the boundary declared? Yes.
  • Is the summary self-contained? Yes.

Self-Audit Complete. CPA run complete.

Rulings on This Run

  • The Step 0 source exception stands: Reid’s texts were read in a modernized edition, and the points listed at Step 0 rest on a secondary source or on recall.
  • The Step 0 corpus exception stands: no document on the CPA corpus list was opened.
  • C6 is Aligned. The value-content divergence is recorded and does not enter C6 as a residual.
  • C2 is Aligned. The locus-and-degree divergence is recorded and does not enter C2 as a residual.

Sources

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

posted by Dave | 6:23 PM

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