Reid on the Priority of Natural Language

Turri, J. (2014). Reid on the priority of natural language. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 41(S1), 214–223.

Thomas Reid distinguished between natural and artificial language and argued that natural language has a very specific sort of priority over artificial language. This paper critically interprets Reid’s discussion, extracts a Reidian explanatory argument for the priority of natural language, and places Reid’s thought in the broad tradition of Cartesian linguistics.