nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
We could start a thread alone on "common sense"...that'd be a good procrastination tool...
I wish people who used that term would admit to themselves that when they're using it they're basically admitting that they have an opinion based on their own very 'common' sense that happens to run counter to their interlocutor's opinion (hate to use such an archaic word but I can't think of a better one there...). There aren't several different planes of cognition, so that only some people have access to the upper echelons of "uncommon" cognitive styles.(Autistic savants being a possible exception here, but not a categorical one...) People's brains follow pretty reliable patterns when it comes to cognition. Some people are faster about it, or better at this or that mundane task-- rotating 3-D objects in their minds, or spelling, or grammar, or arithmetic. Verbal acuity, mechanical, etc. The most intelligent people are the ones who are best able to synthesize seemingly disparate bits of information and, more importantly, to forge logical arguments in the full knowledge that, no matter how logically sound their reasoning, their premises could be false so the whole edifice could come tumbling down should someone challenge their assumptions.
This is why, if there is something opposed to "common sense", it's science, not philosophy or crit theory. Philosophy isn't very good at examining its own biases (admittedly, it has become better at this in the past hundred years or so...) Although philosopher-mathematicians did give us formal logic, which was gracious of them...
I wish people who used that term would admit to themselves that when they're using it they're basically admitting that they have an opinion based on their own very 'common' sense that happens to run counter to their interlocutor's opinion (hate to use such an archaic word but I can't think of a better one there...). There aren't several different planes of cognition, so that only some people have access to the upper echelons of "uncommon" cognitive styles.(Autistic savants being a possible exception here, but not a categorical one...) People's brains follow pretty reliable patterns when it comes to cognition. Some people are faster about it, or better at this or that mundane task-- rotating 3-D objects in their minds, or spelling, or grammar, or arithmetic. Verbal acuity, mechanical, etc. The most intelligent people are the ones who are best able to synthesize seemingly disparate bits of information and, more importantly, to forge logical arguments in the full knowledge that, no matter how logically sound their reasoning, their premises could be false so the whole edifice could come tumbling down should someone challenge their assumptions.
This is why, if there is something opposed to "common sense", it's science, not philosophy or crit theory. Philosophy isn't very good at examining its own biases (admittedly, it has become better at this in the past hundred years or so...) Although philosopher-mathematicians did give us formal logic, which was gracious of them...
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