From: Bala Pillai
Sent: Friday, 27 May 2005 11:37 AM
To: act-km@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [act-km] Relationship Between Common
Sense & Philosophy
Dear all,
Re: below -- philosophy had become
more bad than a good label because of its association with those in ivory
towers who are out of touch with ground realities. However, I sense that the
pendulum is shifting back to greater grasp of the relationships between
philosophy, common sense, knowledge and our “connecting-the-dots”
faculty. There is less popular disdain for philosophy than there was, even
though there still is significant disdain for it.
We can say that the very fact that
we have such a field as “Knowledge Management” is a) us
admitting that we did not emphasise cross-silo Knowledge Management as much as
we could have, previously and b) that “Knowledge Management” is
rather synonymous with “Applied Philosophy” sans the negative
associations that academic Philosophy had gathered. That the fruits of
Knowledge Management would include i) repairing the negative associations and
ii) patching the epistemological gaps between and fusing together Knowledge
Management, Philosophy, Common Sense & Sense-Making and their over-arching
role in applied fields together. Or to put it simply: make common sense more
common.
What’s your essencing of the
over-arching state of play?
Cheers../bala
Philosophy and Common Sense
by Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.
http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphil6.htm
As with the term "philosophy" itself, we can assign both a broad
general meaning and a strict technical meaning to the expression "common
sense."
In its wide, popular meaning "common sense" is simply the
conglomeration of generally held opinions and beliefs, more or less well
founded, more or less mixed up with error and prejudice, which make up the
voice of the community -- "what everybody knows." It may also refer
in this broad usage to good practical sense in everyday affairs -- to
"good horse sense."
In a philosophical context the expression has had a number of meanings. For
the Romans, common sense meant the vulgar opinions of mankind. For Thomas Aquinas
it was a technical expression for the unifying sense ("central"
sense). For certain modern philosophers it has meant a kind of
"instinct" or "special feeling" for the truth (this seems
to be the doctrine held by Thomas Reid and the "Common Sense" Scottish
School of thought).
None of these usages square with the strict interpretation that modern-day
classical philosophic realists (including the school of "Contextual
Realism") have given to the expression "common sense" above. It
is important, therefore, to realize the exact sense in which it is used.
Common sense refers to the spontaneous activity of the intellect, the way
in which it operates of its own native vigor before it has been given any
special training. It implies man's native capacity to know the most fundamental
aspects of reality, in particular, the existence of things (including our own
existence), the first principles of being (identity, noncontradiction, and
excluded middle), and secondary principles which flow immediately from the
self-evident principles (causality, sufficient reason, etc.).
One of the points that links philosophy and common sense is that they both
use these principles. They differ however in the way they use them. Common
sense uses them unconsciously, unreflectively, uncritically. They can be
obscured or deformed for common sense by faulty education, by cultural
prejudices, by deceptive sense imagery. Philosophy, on the contrary, uses
these principles critically, consciously, scientifically. Philosophy can
therefore defend and communicate its knowledge.
The certainties of common sense, the insights of a reasoning which is
implicit rather than explicit, are just as well founded as the certainties of
philosophy, for the light of common sense is fundamentally the same as that of
philosophy: the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this
light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, is not perfected by
scientific reasoning. Philosophy, therefore, as contrasted with common sense is
scientific knowledge; knowledge, that is, through causes.
A second point which links philosophy and common sense is that they take all
of reality for their province -- common sense blindly, in a kind of instinctive
response of the individual to the totality of experience; philosophy
consciously, in the endeavor to give every aspect of reality its due.
This claim of philosophy to know the whole reality does not mean that the
philosopher makes pretense of knowing everything -- the human intellect
cannot exhaust the mystery of the smallest being in the universe, let alone
everything. It remains true, nevertheless, that all things are the subject
matter of philosophy, in the sense that the philosopher takes as his angle of
vision or point of view the highest principles, the ultimate causes, of all
reality. Along with common sense, then, philosophy seeks the comprehensive,
all-inclusive view of reality; it is the knowledge of all things.
Philosophy is thus close to common sense and at the same time different from
it. It differs from common sense because it holds its conclusions scientifically
(that is, intellectually, rationally, and through causes), with a clarity and
depth inaccessible to common sense. It is close to common sense because it
shares the universality of common sense and a common insight into
the fundamental structure of reality.
We might even say that philosophy grows out of common sense, and that common
sense taken in its strict meaning is a kind of foreshadowing, a dim silhouette,
of philosophy proper. Any philosophy, therefore, that strays very far from
common sense is suspect. If it goes so far as to contradict the basic
certitudes of common sense, then it is guilty of denying reality itself, and on
this point common sense can pass judgment on it.
Keep in mind this point which is clearly stated on our homepage regarding
the position of classical philosophic realism as interpreted by The Radical
Academy:
"The Radical
Academy is an analysis of
the human condition as seen through the eyes of an authentic philosophical
realism fundamentally grounded on the judgments of common sense, critically
examined and expanded."
Notice the phrase "common sense, critically examined and
expanded." This means that our common sense judgments must be subjected to
a critical examination; sometimes our common sense beliefs are wrong and
can be corrected by reflection upon them. (The exceptions here, of course, are
the spontaneous convictions regarding the existence of objects -- including
ourselves -- and the truth of the self-evident principles.)
Furthermore, the "Contextual Realist" adds the addendum "and
expanded," because Contextual Realism supports the "possibility"
of multiple universes, parallel universes, a multidimensional reality,
extrasensory perception, and so on, speculations that go beyond common sense
and may, in fact, contradict common sense beliefs. This is one reason why
Contextual Realism as a philosophy is very comfortable with the findings and
speculations of modern quantum physics, many of whose propositions are
obviously contrary to common sense, and also with the findings and speculations
of parapsychology, many of whose propositions are contrary to the
"conventional wisdom."
cheers../bala
Bala
Pillai bala@apic.net
Knowledge
Economy Brands-in-the-making (since 1995)
Knowledge
Management + Social Networks + Citizen Journalism + Complementary Currency
See http://www.malaysia.net/bala-interview
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