Random Thoughts Thread

**Andres** · 08-23-2013, 09:38

All too easily "common sense" is abused to force one's opinion through another one's throat.

I'm going to make a bold statement: common sense is an obstacle in philosophy and therefore has no place in it. It imposes a limit and as such becomes a roadblock to innovative and new ideas. Common sense stands in the way. And not only in philosophy.

I understand @asai about Descartes and some philosophers living in Ivory Towers, and to a certain degree, I concur, but Descartes' was groundbreaking in the sense that his ideas force you to be skeptical about everything, even about things you observe. He takes it to the extreme, which becomes a bit silly, but there is merit in it.

Perhaps it is nothing more than an impression, but I have the impression that in our modern day Western societies, people are not sceptical enough. Everything mainstream media throws at them, is accepted as fact and truth. Sure, you can say some of his ideas are silly, but we need more Descartes who learns us to distrust everything we observe to balance out the lack of scepticism and critical thinking in our societies.

We need more people arguing that perhaps oranges aren't orange to counterbalance the majority which questions nothing.

EDIT: it was ACIN who mentioned asai, which only shows Descartes was right: I shouldn't trust my senses.

**a completely inoffensive name** · 08-23-2013, 10:19

Originally Posted by Andres

All too easily "common sense" is abused to force one's opinion through another one's throat.

I'm going to make a bold statement: common sense is an obstacle in philosophy and therefore has no place in it. It imposes a limit and as such becomes a roadblock to innovative and new ideas. Common sense stands in the way. And not only in philosophy.

I understand @asai about Descartes and some philosophers living in Ivory Towers, and to a certain degree, I concur, but Descartes' was groundbreaking in the sense that his ideas force you to be skeptical about everything, even about things you observe. He takes it to the extreme, which becomes a bit silly, but there is merit in it.

Perhaps it is nothing more than an impression, but I have the impression that in our modern day Western societies, people are not sceptical enough. Everything mainstream media throws at them, is accepted as fact and truth. Sure, you can say some of his ideas are silly, but we need more Descartes who learns us to distrust everything we observe to balance out the lack of scepticism and critical thinking in our societies.

We need more people arguing that perhaps oranges aren't orange to counterbalance the majority which questions nothing.

If I had more time I would make more of an effort to discuss everything you said. But I am way to tired, so I will just ask one quick question.

If you believe that common sense has no place in philosophy, do you believe that our moral intuitions should be completely disregarded in the philosophy of ethics?

**a completely inoffensive name** · 08-23-2013, 10:26

I have been using common sense has a substitute for asserting what appears to be obvious on a basic level of observation.

Common Sense is often abused as a description for "my opinion". Asserting that we all see the clock and can read the same time from it, is a common sense standpoint imo. There is a place for this kind of assertion and I feel it has its merits as well as the more subjective and skeptical views.

**a completely inoffensive name** · 08-23-2013, 10:46

Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube

I think instead of using the phrase "Common Sense" you would want to be more specific in what kind of knowledge deficit the other person lacks, if you wanted to be all logical and stuff. For example instead of "Geez, of course that's not how it happened, don't you have any common sense?" you could say "Actually, I don't think the Dinosaurs landed on the moon. I'm pretty sure space explored them, not the other way around. Your lack of basic factual knowledge is staggering."

I agree. I was just borrowing the term from Monty who brought it up with his original post and adapted the definition I thought he was associating with it.

**Andres** · 08-23-2013, 10:47

Common sense is a rather vague notion and in a lot of instances, people use it as denominator of what they think is the mainstream opinion of society or simply what they think is correct.

If you say that the clock shows that time, then it is not "common sense" to say that it's now x hours late. It's just that late. Besides, there are arguments contra. The clock could be inexact, in another part of the world, the time is not the same etc. Now, one could argue that it is "common sense" not to start a discussion about how late it is, since we all see the clock, but in a way, it's not common sense, but your opinion. You just say it's common sense to accept that what the clock says is the right time, because you're not interested in a discussion about time zones or about flaws in clock mechanisms that make them inexact. By using the notion "common sense", you avoid the dicussion and attempt to finish it. You stiffle the debate and make it impossible to have a discussion about better clock mechanisms or about time zones.

In the clock example, it can be defended that it would be silly to constantly doubt the time the clock is showing, but where do you draw the line? When is a discussion worth having and not worth having?

The most common answer to that last question, would probably be: use common sense.

If you go far enough however, you'll find out that everyone has a different opinion on what common sense is. If nobody fully agrees on what common sense is in all circumstances, than perhaps it's not so common.

Common sense doesn't exist and thus cannot be used as an argument.