Common Sense for Objectivists: Five Reasons for Fans of Ayn Rand to Study Thomas Reid

By Jon Hersey

Ayn Rand said that the only names in philosophy she could recommend were “the three As: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.”¹ She also tipped her hat to Francis Bacon, John Locke, and the American founders.² But in the long line of thinkers before Rand, there were others who groped toward an objective basis of knowledge and morality, some of whom made signi…