Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Things that common sense isn't.

"Le sens commun n'est pas si commun" - Voltaire.

People use the phrase "It's just common sense," a bit too often. It's tempting to think that common sense isn't what it used to be (much like nostalgia); but I suspect it has always been a vague catch-all for obviousness.

Mostly the term "common sense" is tacked on to whatever plagiarized ideology is ringing in the ears of the bien-pensant. For example: Socialists and capitalists will both contend that their theories are born of common sense (or at least common decency). The capitalist will contend it is common sense to expect people to work hard for reward (which is often true) and a socialist will counter that unless government uses taxes to provide social welfare then those without means will remain without means (also by and large true).

Common sense is probably not that complicated. It could probably be summed up within the sentiment of self preservation; not putting ones hand in the fire, not eating yellow snow, not publishing libelous material in a blog post, et cetera. We could make a list of all the things that are commonly thought of as sensible, but where's the fun in that.

Common sense cannot, by definition, be anything that is learned. And, since the lexicon of human knowledge is vastly of acquired information; common sense is very rare indeed.

By the way, if you want to sound clever1 you can call it a priori reasoning.


1. It doesn't make you sound clever. It makes you difficult to understand to those who don't know latin2.
2. It's commonsense really.

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