Common sense once carried real experimental merit but now has far less.

Evidence

In what exactly does the merit of what is normally termed “common sense” or “good sense” consist? Not just in the fact that, if only implicitly, common sense applies the principle of causality, but in the much more limited fact that in a whole range of judgments common sense identifies the exact cause, simple and to hand, and does not let itself be distracted by fancy quibbles and pseudo-profound, pseudo-scientific metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. It was natural that “common sense” should have been exalted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when there was a reaction against the principle of authority represented by Aristotle and the Bible. It was discovered indeed that in “common sense” there was a certain measure of “experimentalism” and direct observation of reality, though empirical and limited. Even today, when a similar state of affairs exists, we find the same favourable judgment on common sense, although the situation has in fact changed and the “common sense” of today has a much more limited intrinsic merit. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1247

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Historical shift in common sense’s value connects to later critical-theory readings on how everyday ‘good sense’ becomes ideological.

Related

• Common sense merits only a limited empirical trust, not philosophical authority. (similarity 0.89)
• Common sense is society’s incoherent assumptions while good sense is practical empirical judgment (similarity 0.85)
• Science had to destroy traditional good sense to create a new one (similarity 0.85)
• Common sense is the uncritical, unconscious worldview common to an epoch (similarity 0.83)
• Common sense died once science explained how it worked (similarity 0.83)
• Common sense is the sedimented residue of past philosophies, continually transforming. (similarity 0.82)
• Philosophy works by replacing one common sense with another aligned to the ruling group (similarity 0.81)
• Common sense is contradictory and only validates truths by their historical spread (similarity 0.80)
• Commonsense objections hinder the popular spread of idealist philosophy (similarity 0.80)
• A philosophy of praxis begins by criticizing common sense while building on it (similarity 0.80)
• Common sense layers sedimented historical beliefs with crude realistic elements, remaining acritical (similarity 0.80)
• Common sense is a chaotic aggregate allowing any claim to be confirmed (similarity 0.79)
• Common sense is the sediment of past philosophy, not fixed belief (similarity 0.79)
• Philosophy and common sense differ in degree, not kind (similarity 0.79)
• Common sense is a historical construct with changing ideological contents. (similarity 0.79)