This paper is dedicated to the relationship between ordinary moral thought and ethical theory in Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. I suggest that different contents of ordinary moral thought play different roles and are lent different philosophical weight in Sidgwick’s arguments. I start by showing how Sidgwick appeals to certain features of ordinary moral thought, deduced from moral language and experience, both in criticising rival metaethical positions and in establishing his own claims. I then turn to the notion of (...) common-sense morality. After clarifying what Sidgwick means by this expression, I argue that common-sense morality has neither probative value in Sidgwick’s argument for the utilitarian principle nor independent validity, and that its authority is ultimately motivated on utilitarian grounds. Pointing out how different contents of ordinary moral thought play different argumentative roles in the foundation and defence of Sidgwick’s utilitarianism enables to ac- count more comprehensively for Sidgwick’s arguments and moral methodology and provides with a more articulated account of the dialectic between his utilitarian theory and ordinary moral thought. (shrink)

What role, if any, should our moral intuitions play in moral epistemology? We make, or are prepared to make, moral judgments about a variety of actual and hypothetical situations. Some of these moral judgments are more informed, reflective, and stable than others (call these ourconsideredmoral judgments); some we make more confidently than others; and some, though not all, are judgments about which there is substantial consensus. What bearing do our moral judgments have on philosophical ethics and the search for first (...) principles in ethics? Should these judgments constrain, or be constrained by, philosophical theorizing about morality? On the one hand, we might expect first principles to conform to our moral intuitions or at least to our considered moral judgments. After all, we begin the reflection that may lead to first principles from particular moral convictions. And some of our moral intuitions (e.g., that genocide is wrong) are more fixed and compelling than any putative first principle. If so, we might expect common moral beliefs to have an important evidential role in the construction and assessment of first principles. On the other hand, common moral beliefs often rest on poor information, reflect bias, or are otherwise mistaken. We often appeal to moral principles to justify our particular moral convictions or to resolve our disagreements. Insofar as this is true, we may expect first principles to provide a foundation on the basis of which to test common moral beliefs and, where necessary, form new moral convictions. (shrink)

What role does ‘ordinary language philosophy’ play in the defense of common sense beliefs? J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein each give central place to ordinary language in their responses to skeptical challenges to common sense beliefs. But Austin and Wittgenstein do not always respond to such challenges in the same way, and their working methods are different. In this paper, I compare Austin’s and Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical positions, and show that they share many metaphilosophical commitments. I (...) then examine Austin and Wittgenstein’s respective takes on the problem of other minds and the problem of our knowledge of the external world. Interestingly, we find Wittgenstein employing methods more frequently associated Austin and vice versa. Moreover, we find that a variety of defenses of common sense beliefs are compatible with ‘ordinary language philosophy.’. (shrink)

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of (...) induction, and the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

The article aims at showing that the philosophical personalism of Pope John Paul II stems from the common sense approach to reality. First, it presents Karol Wojtyla as a framer of the Lublin Philosophical School, to which he was affiliated for 24 years before being elected Pope John Paul II; it shows Wojtyla’s role in establishing this original philosophical School by his contribution to its endorsement of Thomism, its way of doing philosophy, and its classically understood personalism. Secondly, (...) it identifies a purpose of Wojtyla’s use of the phenomenological method in his personalism and reconstructs Wojtyla’s possible answer to the question whether there is a link between moral sense and common sense in human experience. (shrink)

Sebastian Sunday-Grève and Timothy Williamson discuss the relationship between curiosity and common sense.

This paper aims to discuss the philosophical roles of common sense in Thomas Reid’s thought. I argue that there is not only one way of appealing to common sense in attempt of discovering truth and allowing knowledge. According to my understanding, Reid makes at least three distinct uses of common sense: (1) the foundational use, in which common sense is taken as the foundation upon which knowledge must be built; (2) the methodological (...) use, in which common sense arises as a source of methodo-logical presuppositions of philosophical investigations; (3) the instrumental use, in which common sense, in the light of the emotion of ridicule, is used as an instrument to refute philosophical principles and conclusions. (shrink)

Sebastian Sunday-Grève and Timothy Williamson discuss the question of where philosophy starts and the idea of philosophy as a non-natural science.

In addition to being a founder of American pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce was a scientist and an empiricist. A core aspect of his thoroughgoing empiricism was a mindset that treats all attitudes as revisable. His fallibilism seems to require us to constantly seek out new information, and to not be content holding any beliefs uncritically. At the same time, Peirce often states that common sense has an important role to play in both scientific and vital inquiry, and that (...) there cannot be any “direct profit in going behind common sense.” Our question is the following: alongside a scientific mindset and a commitment to the method of inquiry, where does common sense fit in? Peirce does at times directly address common sense; however, those explicit engagements are relatively infrequent. In this paper, we argue that getting a firm grip on the role of common sense in Peirce’s philosophy requires a three-pronged investigation, targeting his treatment of common sense alongside his more numerous remarks on intuition and instinct. By excavating and developing Peirce’s concepts of instinct and intuition, we show that his respect for common sense coheres with his insistence on the methodological superiority of inquiry. We conclude that Peirce shows us the way to a distinctive epistemic position balancing fallibilism and anti-scepticism, a pragmatist common sense position of considerable interest for contemporary epistemology given current interest in the relation of intuition and reason. (shrink)

Many philosophers these days consider themselves naturalists, but it's doubtful any two of them intend the same position by the term. In Second Philosophy, Penelope Maddy describes and practices a particularly austere form of naturalism called "Second Philosophy". Without a definitive criterion for what counts as "science" and what doesn't, Second Philosophy can't be specified directly ("trust only the methods of science" for example), so Maddy proceeds instead by illustrating the behaviors of an idealized inquirer she calls the "Second (...) Philosopher". mhis Second Philosopher begins from perceptual common sense experimentation, theory formation and testing, working all the while to asses, correct and improve her methods as she goes. Second Philosophy is then the result of the Second Philosopher's investigations. Maddy delineates the Second Philosopher's approach by tracing her reactions to various familiar skeptical and transcendental views (Descartes, Kant, Carnap, late Putnam, van Fraassen), comparing her methods to those of other self-described naturalists (especially Quine), and examining a prominent contemporary debate (between disquotationalists and correspondence theorists in the theory of truth) to extract a properly second-philosophical line of thought. She then undertakes to practice Second Philosophy in her reflections on the ground of logical truth, the methodology, ontology and epistemology of mathematics, and the general prospects for metaphysics naturalized. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to clarify the heart of Dewey’s philosophy: his method (denotative method (DM) / pattern of inquiry (PI)). Despite the traditional understanding of Dewey as anti-foundationalist, I want to show that Dewey did have metaphysical foundations for his method: the principle of continuity or theory of emergentism. I also argue that Dewey’s metaphysical position is better named as ‘cultural emergentism’, rather than his own term ‘cultural naturalism’. What Dewey called ‘common sense’ in his Logic, (...) Husserl termed as the ‘life-world’ in his Crisis. I compare two perspectives of dealing with the phenomenon and conclude that for Dewey, the difference between natural sciences and the common sense inquiry is that of subject-matter but not of method. Thus, the goal is to find the unified method to be applied in both domains. Whereas Husserl was more pessimistic: for him, the difference was not only in subject-matter, but in the very methods. Following that discussion, I also attempt to reformulate the hard problem of consciousness in Deweyan terms. In the end, I compare Dewey’s DM / PI with Popper’s understandings of scientific method and conclude that there is no significant difference between the two and that Dewey’s method could also be looked at as hypothetic-deductive method, with the only difference in emphases. (shrink)

Sense and Affect exposes the limits of important recent strands in continental philosophy. It questions the necessity of a certain language of violence, otherness, disruption and pathos saturating Jacques Derrida's texts and the texts of those having a proximity to Derrida's deconstructionist project. This book establishes a connection between such affective terminology and a common, if heterogeneously expressed, theoretical inadequacy binding Derrida and writers such as Lyotard, Foucault, Caputo and Nancy. Their failure to penetrate a presumed irreducibility of (...) suffering in the world is shown to be linked to their dependence on the assumption of an irreducible tension at the origin of meaning. This book develops a fresh method of thought thoroughly unraveling the presuppositions of deconstructive orientations and uncovering a finer silt of the world than is seen via such discourses. (shrink)

At the end of the 19th century, most professional historians – wherever they existed – deemed history to be a form of knowledge ruled by a method that bears no resemblance with those most commonly traceable in the natural sciences. The bulk of the historian’s task was then frequently regarded as being the application of procedures frequently referred to as ‘historical method’. In the context of such an emerging interest on historical methods and methodology, at least three textbooks stand (...) out: Johann Gustav Droysen’s Grundriss der Historik (Outline of the Theory of History), Ernst Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (Handbook of Historical Method), and Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos’s Introduction aux études historiques (Introduction to the Study of History). These books were quite influential in Germany, France, and elsewhere, and they very much helped promote a general idea of historical method that would become relatively consensual among historians of many nationalities by the early 20th century. Such a relative agreement on historical method sponsored both the communication and the development of a sense of disciplinary identity among historians trained within different and sometimes conflicting national traditions. It was then partially extended, partially challenged, and surely made more complex when, from the 1920s on, social and economic historians became a good part of the historiographical establishment in many countries. -/- The three books by Droysen, Bernheim, and Langlois and Seignobos were already pieced together by Rolf Torstendahl, who studied them as a group of texts that, despite their differences, contributed to shape the developments outlined above. However, Torstendahl’s primary aim was to show how Droysen, Bernheim, and Seignobos all resorted to ‘method’ as a way to circumvent skepticism against the possibility of historical knowledge, rather than investigate the internal interrelationships between the three texts. In this chapter I follow precisely this latter, not yet taken, road, focusing on crucial cross-references between the Grundriss, the Lehrbuch, and the Introduction. I intend to show that, at a general level, the schemes of historical method found in these texts are largely convergent, and that this convergence is due to Bernheim’s reading of Droysen and to Langlois and Seignobos’s reading of Bernheim. I will attempt to do it through a regressive approach that starts with an analysis of the Introduction. Aspects of the editorial history and circulation of the three texts will also be briefly addressed, as a way to illustrate their special importance within the framework of early 20th century historical theory. Because my argument calls for a focus on the most general lines of Droysen’s, Bernheim’s, and Langlois and Seignobos’s schemes of historical method, I will, for the sake of consistency, refrain from analysing in-depth the complex epistemological and ontological arguments in which those schemes are nested. (shrink)

The paper surveys the currently available axiomatizations of common belief (CB) and common knowledge (CK) by means of modal propositional logics. (Throughout, knowledge- whether individual or common- is defined as true belief.) Section 1 introduces the formal method of axiomatization followed by epistemic logicians, especially the syntax-semantics distinction, and the notion of a soundness and completeness theorem. Section 2 explains the syntactical concepts, while briefly discussing their motivations. Two standard semantic constructions, Kripke structures and neighbourhood structures, are (...) introduced in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. It is recalled that Aumann's partitional model of CK is a particular case of a definition in terms of Kripke structures. The paper also restates the well-known fact that Kripke structures can be regarded as particular cases of neighbourhood structures. Section 3 reviews the soundness and completeness theorems proved w.r.t. the former structures by Fagin, Halpern, Moses and Vardi, as well as related results by Lismont. Section 4 reviews the corresponding theorems derived w.r.t. the latter structures by Lismont and Mongin. A general conclusion of the paper is that the axiomatization of CB does not require as strong systems of individual belief as was originally thought- only monotonicity has thusfar proved indispensable. Section 5 explains another consequence of general relevance: despite the "infinitary" nature of CB, the axiom systems of this paper admit of effective decision procedures, i.e., they are decidable in the logician's sense. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically approach the essence of Dewey’s philosophy: his method. In particular, it is what Dewey termed as denotative method is at the center of my attention. I approach Dewey’s denotative method via what I call the “genealogical deconstruction” that is followed by the “pragmatic reconstruction.” This meta-approach is not alien to Dewey’s philosophy, and in fact was employed by Dewey himself in Experience and Nature. The paper consists of two parts. In Part 1, I genealogically deconstruct (...) the philosophical foundation of the denotative method: the doctrine of immediate empiricism. The latter was originally stated in Dewey’s 1905 seminal “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” article, and fully developed twenty years later in his Experience and Nature. I claim that Dewey’s immediate empiricism is essentially incompatible with his pragmatism (instrumentalism) and with pragmatism overall. In Part 2, I pragmatically reconstruct Dewey’s denotative method from the perspective of what I term as the “hermeneutic empiricism” which is grounded in Dewey’s 1896 “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” article. As opposed to the immediate empiricism’s main thesis “things are what they are experienced as,” the motto of the hermeneutic empiricism would be “things are what they are interpreted as”/“things are experienced what they are interpreted as.” The above-mentioned pragmatic reconstruction also leads to the transformation of the notion of “common sense” which is vital to Dewey’s method, into the notion of sound reason. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses the work of Thomas Hobbes, and has two main themes. The first is Hobbes's materialism, and the second is Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers, in particular his place in the mechanist movement that is said to have replaced Aristotelianism as the dominant philosophy in the seventeenth century. -/- I argue that Hobbes does not, for most of his career, believe the general materialist view that bodies are the only substances. He believes, rather, that ideas, which are our (...) main mechanism for thinking about the world, allow us to understand many bodies, but not to understand every thing we recognize to exist. The incomprehensible things include God---and, early in Hobbes's career, the human mind. Discussing materialism and our knowledge of God leads me to engage with the debate over Hobbes's alleged atheism. I argue that the evidence for Hobbes's atheism is weak at best. Hobbes is a sincere theist, though his view is sometimes unusual. -/- My discussion of Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers has three parts. In chapter five I argue that Hobbes's views about method are in important ways similar to Zabarella's. In chapter six I look at Hobbes's rejection of the view, held by some scholastic Aristotelians, that accidents can sometimes exist without inhering in substances. Thus we see two sides of Hobbes's interaction with the Aristotelian tradition. Sometimes that interaction is just rejection, but at other times Hobbes takes over views from that tradition. Then in chapter seven I consider whether, and in what sense, Hobbes is a mechanist. I argue that the narrative of mechanism and Aristotelianism is a less powerful explanation than it has seemed to some to be, because it is hard to see what mechanists have in common. (shrink)

A common way of testing the inner sense theory of introspection exploits the possibility of damage to inner sense. Such damage is expected to lead to first-personal deficits/impairments of one kind or another. I raise various problems for this way of testing the theory. The main difficulty, I argue, stems from the existence of the method subserving confabulation.

Can there be a theory-free experience? And what would be the object of such an experience. Drawing on ideas set out by Husserl in the “Crisis” and in the second book of his “Ideas”, the paper presents answers to these questions in such a way as to provide a systematic survey of the content and ontology of common sense. In the second part of the paper Husserl’s ideas on the relationship between the common-sense world (what he (...) called the ‘life-world’) and the world of physical theory are subjected to a critical evaluation. The relation of Husserl’s ideas to current work in folk psychology and naive physics and to the direct realism of J. J. Gibson are also treated. (shrink)

Temporal ontology is the philosophical debate on the existence of the past and the future. It features a three-way confrontation between supporters of presentism (the present exists, the past and the future do not), pastism (the past and the present exist, the future does not), and eternalism (the past, the present, and the future all exist). Most philosophers engaged in this debate believe that presentism is much more in agreement with common sense than the rival views; moreover, most (...) of them believe that being in agreement with common sense is epistemically valuable for a philosophical view. We studied experimentally non-experts’ ideas pertaining to the domain of temporal ontology, i.e., as we called it, common-sense temporal ontology, focusing on the Italian population. We found that a non-overwhelming majority of participants (~64%) favoured presentism, while two significant minorities favoured pastism (~19%) and eternalism (~17%). We think that our findings provide some support, albeit weaker than expected, for the view that presentism is more in agreement with common sense than the rival positions. (shrink)

Some philosophical theories of the nature of color aim to respect a "common sense" conception of color: aligning with the common sense conception is supposed to speak in favor of a theory and conflicting with it is supposed to speak against a theory. In this paper, we argue that the idea of a "common sense" conception of color that philosophers of color have relied upon is overly simplistic. By drawing on experimental and historical evidence, (...) we show how conceptions of color vary along several dimensions and how even supposedly "core" components of the contemporary "common sense" conception of color are less stable than they have been thought to be. (shrink)

In this paper I show that one of the most fruitful ways of employing paradoxes has been as a philosophical method that forces us to reconsider basic assumptions. After a brief discussion of recent understandings of the notion of paradoxes, I show that Zeno of Elea was the inventor of paradoxes in this sense, against the background of Heraclitus’ and Parmenides’ way of argumentation: in contrast to Heraclitus, Zeno’s paradoxes do not ask us to embrace a paradoxical reality; and (...) in contrast to Parmenides, Zeno shows common assumptions to be internally problematic, not just in light of Eleatic positions. (shrink)

Does science provide knowledge of reality? In this paper, I offer a positive response to this question. I reject the anti-realist claim that we are unable to acquire knowledge of reality in favour of the realist view that science yields knowledge of the external world. But what world is that? Some argue that science leads to the overthrow of our commonsense view of the world. Common sense is “stone-age metaphysics” to be rejected as the false theory of our (...) primitive ancestors. Against such eliminativists about common sense, I argue that science both preserves and explains commonsense experience of the world. Though science may lead to the overthrow of deeply held beliefs, common sense reflects a more basic and durable level of experience. Commonsense beliefs are well-confirmed beliefs which are vindicated by their role in successful practical action each and every day. Common sense provides a firm basis on which to establish the realist approach to science. (shrink)

I discuss the role of translatability in philosophical justification. I begin by discussing and defending Thomas Reid’s account of the role that facts about comparative linguistics can play in philosophical justification. Reid believes that common sense offers a reliable but defeasible form of justification. We cannot know by introspection, however, which of our judgments belong to common sense. Judgments of common sense are universal, and so he argues that the strongest evidence that a judgment (...) is a part of common sense is that it is to be found in all languages. For Reid, then, evidence that a certain distinction is to be found in all languages is evidence that the distinction is part of common sense rather than being a common local prejudice. From such a perspective, empirical work in comparative linguistics can play a defeasible justificatory role in philosophical arguments. I contrast Reid’s position with the more radical position of defenders of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, such as Anna Wierzbicka, who argues that only judgments that are translatable into all natural languages are justifiable. I show how such a position is rooted in an implausible view, although one common among cognitive scientists and linguistics, about the nature of concepts, which does not allow for novel concepts. (shrink)

Alexander Campbell once declared “a solemn league and covenant” between philosophy and common sense. Campbell’s pronouncement is representative of a broader trend in the Restorationist movement to look favorably on the common sense response to skepticism—a response originating in the work of Scottish philosopher and former minister Thomas Reid. I recount the tumultuous history between philosophy and common sense followed by the efforts of Campbell and Reid to reunite them. Turning to the present, I (...) argue that an epistemic principle known as phenomenal conservatism best embodies the core insights contained within Reid and Campbell's common sense response to skepticism. I finish by arguing for phenomenal conservatism. (shrink)

This paper reviews the principal objections that Hume's Scots "common sense" contemporaries had to his account of the understanding. In the absence of any but the most scant evidence of Hume's own reactions to these criticisms, it weighs what he might have said in his own defense.

In part one I present a positive argument for the claim that philosophical argument can rationally overturn common sense. It is widely agreed that science can overturn common sense. But every scientific argument, I argue, relies on philosophical assumptions. If the scientific argument succeeds, then its philosophical assumptions must be more worthy of belief than the common sense proposition under attack. But this means there could be a philosophical argument against common sense, (...) each of whose premises is just as worthy of belief as the scientist’s philosophical assumptions. If so, then the purely philosophical argument will also succeed. In part two I consider three motivations, each of which comprises a distinct philosophical methodology, for the opposing view: (1) the Moorean idea that common sense enjoys greater plausibility than philosophy; (2) case judgments should trump general principles; (3) reflective equilibrium and conservatism. I argue that all three motivations fail. (shrink)

This is a review of David Phillips, Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide.

Kant’s Prolegomena is a piece of philosophical advertising: it exists to convince the open-minded “future teacher” of metaphysics that the true critical philosophy — i.e., the Critique — provides the only viable solution to the problem of metaphysics (i.e. its failure to make any genuine progress). To be effective, a piece of advertising needs to know its audience. This chapter argues that Kant takes his reader to have some default sympathies for the common-sense challenge to metaphysics originating from (...) Thomas Reid and his followers; this fact in turn explains his rhetorical strategies in the Prolegomena, particularly regarding the presentation of the problem of metaphysics. The chapter draws attention to the importance of Shaftesbury, who, with a nod to Horace, had argued for the deployment of humour to disarm fraudulent claims to epistemic and moral authority. Kant looks to Horace himself to poke fun at the common-sense challenge to metaphysics, and from there to indicate the general shape of the particular argumentative strategies of the Critique — that project that alone, in his view, can promise some kind of future for metaphysics. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen endorses both common-sense realism — the view, roughly, that the ordinary macroscopic objects that we take to exist actually do exist — and constructive empiricism — the view, roughly, that the aim of science is truth about the observable world. But what happens if common-sense realism and science come into conflict? I argue that it is reasonable to think that they could come into conflict, by giving some motivation for a mental monist solution (...) to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. I then consider whether, in a situation where science favors the mental monist interpretation, van Fraassen would want to give up common-sense realism or would want to give up science. (shrink)

In this article I focus on some unduly neglected common-sense considerations supporting the view that one's evidence is the propositions that one knows. I reply to two recent objections to these considerations.

The article presents two antagonistic views of reality, one coming from modern science and the other from flat-Earthers, to discuss the relationships between common-sense, science, and reality. The concrete fact under analysis refers to the solar system and the position of the earth in this system, that is, the duality of geocentrism and heliocentrism. After discussing the reasons for denying geocentrism with arguments from theoretical physics, we return to discussing the duality against the backdrop of the history of (...) science, showing that the issue was much more complex when the Ptolemaic paradigm passed to the Copernican one in the 16th century. The article shows that the paradigm shift presupposed the invention of a reality that took more than 100 years to stop being an invention and become a reality. From an epistemological point of view, a discovery, even if it corresponds to empirical facts, needs theoretical support to be considered true or, in the terms we are dealing with here, to be considered reality and part of common sense. Ontologically speaking, we cannot consider a certain worldview as an existing reality beyond the mental model that created it. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between science and common sense. It takes as its point of departure, Eddington’s distinction between the table of physics and the table of common sense, as well as Eddington’s suggestion that science shows common sense to be false. Against the suggestion that science shows common sense to be false, it is argued that there is a form of common sense, basic common sense, which (...) is not typically overthrown by scientific research. Such basic common sense is strongly confirmed by our everyday experience and may itself serve as the basic for scientific realism. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that it counts for a metaphysical theory when the theory is in accord with common sense and against a metaphysical theory when the theory clashes with common sense. It is unclear, however, why this should be the case. When engaging in metaphysics, why should we give common sense any weight? This chapter maintains that it is only against the backdrop of a particular metametaphysical stance that questions about metaphysical best practices (...) become tractable. From the perspective of a metaphysics-as-modelling approach, common sense ought to play a significant, though defeasible, role in metaphysical theorizing. According with common sense is one of a number of theoretical virtues that metaphysicians should strive for. Nevertheless, it is important for the metaphysician to be cautious when appealing to common sense. She should distinguish what actually falls within the bounds of common sense as such from what a particular researcher happens to find intuitive. Furthermore, our best scientific theories may undercut the evidence provided by common sense. Finally, the metaphysician should attend to the context in which she invokes common sense. For some topics of inquiry, common sense ought to play a more expansive role in our metaphysical theorizing than for others. (shrink)

The main claim of this paper is that Andy Clark's most influential argument for ‘the extended mind thesis’ (EM henceforth) fails. Clark's argument for EM assumes that a certain form of common-sense functionalism is true. I argue, contra Clark, that the assumed brand of common-sense functionalism does not imply EM. Clark's argument also relies on an unspoken, undefended and optional assumption about the nature of mental kinds—an assumption denied by the very common-sense functionalists on (...) whom Clark's argument draws. I also critique Mark Sprevak's reductio of Clark's argument. Sprevak contends that Clark's argument does not merely entail EM; it entails an extended mind thesis so strong as to be absurd. He goes on to claim that Clark's argument should properly be viewed as a reductio of the very common-sense functionalism on which it depends. Sprevak's argument shares the flaw that afflicts Clark's argument, or so I claim. (shrink)

The view of nature we adopt in the natural attitude is determined by common sense, without which we could not survive. Classical physics is modelled on this common-sense view of nature, and uses mathematics to formalise our natural understanding of the causes and effects we observe in time and space when we select subsystems of nature for modelling. But in modern physics, we do not go beyond the realm of common sense by augmenting our (...) knowledge of what is going on in nature. Rather, we have measurements that we do not understand, so we know nothing about the ontology of what we measure. We help ourselves by using entities from mathematics, which we fully understand ontologically. But we have no ontology of the reality of modern physics; we have only what we can assert mathematically. In this paper, we describe the ontology of classical and modern physics against this background and show how it relates to the ontology of common sense and of mathematics. (shrink)

There has been some recent optimism that addressing the question of how we distinguish sensory modalities will help us consider whether there are limits on a scientific understanding of perceptual states. For example, Block has suggested that the way we distinguish sensory modalities indicates that perceptual states have qualia which at least resist scientific characterization. At another extreme, Keeley argues that our common-sense way of distinguishing the senses in terms of qualitative properties is misguided, and offers a scientific (...) eliminativism about common-sense modalities which avoids appeal to qualitative properties altogether. I’ll argue contrary to Keeley that qualitative properties are necessary for distinguishing senses, and contrary to Block that our common-sense distinction doesn’t indicate that perceptual states have qualia. A non-qualitative characterization of perceptual states isn’t needed to avoid the potential limit on scientific understanding imposed by qualia. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the pragmatist elements of Thomas Reid's approach to the justification of first principles by reference to Charles S. Peirce. Peirce argues that first principles are justified by their surviving a process of ‘self-criticism’, in which we come to appreciate that we cannot bring ourselves to doubt these principles, in addition to the foundational role they play in inquiries. The evidence Reid allows first principles bears resemblance to surviving the process of self-criticism. I then argue that this evidence (...) allows Reid and Peirce a way out of the dilemma between dogmatism and skepticism regarding the justification of such principles, insofar as they are epistemically, and not solely practically, justified. (shrink)

In this paper I set out to solve the problem of how the world as we experience it, full of colours and other sensory qualities, and our inner experiences, can be reconciled with physics. I discuss and reject the views of J. J. C. Smart and Rom Harré. I argue that physics is concerned only to describe a selected aspect of all that there is – the causal aspect which determines how events evolve. Colours and other sensory qualities, lacking causal (...) efficacy, are ignored by physics and cannot be predicted by physical theory. Even though physics is silent about sensory qualities, they nevertheless exist objectively in the world – in one sense of “objective” at least. (shrink)

The paper suggests a distinction between two dimensions of grasp of concepts within an inferentialist approach to conceptual content: a common sense "minimum" version, where a simple speaker needs just a few inferences to grasp a concept C, and an expert version, where the specialist is able to master a wide range of inferential transitions involving C. This paper tries to defend this distinction and to explore some of its basic implications.

Moral luck poses a problem for out conception of responsibility because it highlights a tension between morality and lack of control. Michael Slote’s common-sense virtue ethics claims to avoid this problem. However there are a number of objections to this claim. Firstly, it is not clear that Slote fully appreciates the problem posed by moral luck. Secondly, Slote’s move from the moral to the ethical is problematic. Thirdly it is not clear why we should want to abandon judgements (...) of moral blame in favour of judgements of ethical deplorability. Finally this paper defends an alternative solution to the problem of moral luck, which focuses on judgements of probability, but which has been rejected by Slote. (shrink)

The inductive argument from evil to the non-existence of God contains the premise that, probably, there is gratuitous evil. Some skeptical theists object: one's justification for the premise that, probably, there is gratuitous evil involves an inference from the proposition that we don't see a good reason for some evil to the proposition that it appears that there is no good reason for that evil, and they use a principle, "CORNEA," to block that inference. The common sense problem (...) of evil threatens the CORNEA move, because the common sense problem of evil does not involve any inference to justify the belief that there is gratuitous evil. In this paper, I argue that the common sense problem of evil doesn't avoid CORNEA. CORNEA, or a reformulated version of it, can still prevent one from having justification for the belief that there is gratuitous evil. (shrink)

Common sense is on the one hand a certain set of processes of natural cognition - of speaking, reasoning, seeing, and so on. On the other hand common sense is a system of beliefs (of folk physics, folk psychology and so on). Over against both of these is the world of common sense, the world of objects to which the processes of natural cognition and the corresponding belief-contents standardly relate. What are the structures of (...) this world? How does the scientific treatment of this world relate to traditional and contemporary metaphysics and formal ontology? Can we embrace a thesis of common-sense realism to the effect that the world of common sense exists uniquely? Or must we adopt instead a position of cultural relativism which would assign distinct worlds of common sense to each group and epoch? The present paper draws on recent work in computer science (especially in the fields of naive and qualitative physics), in perceptual and developmental psychology, and in cognitive anthropology, in order to consider in a new light these and related questions and to draw conclusions for the methodology and philosophical foundations of the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

The paper aims to discuss the notion of ‘common sense’ in Thomas Reid’s philosophy. It presents two hypotheses. The first hypothesis states that the common sense that Reid uses in philosophical matters is nothing but the set of original principles of the mind that determine human beings in regard to their notions, beliefs and inclinations, as well as the judgments and beliefs that are due to these principles. The second hypothesis states that Reid understands a kind (...) of ‘developed common sense’, a common sense that develops throughout human life by the proper cultivation of the powers of the mind. (shrink)

Sometimes someone does something morally wrong in clear-eyed awareness that what she is doing is wrong. More commonly, a wrongdoer fails to see that her conduct is wrong. Call the latter behavior unwitting wrongful conduct. It is generally agreed that an agent can be blameworthy for such conduct, but there is considerable disagreement about how one’s blameworthiness in such cases is to be explained, or what conditions must be satisfied for the agent to be blameworthy for her conduct. Many theorists (...) hold that an agent’s blameworthiness for unwitting wrongful conduct must stem from—or trace back to—her blameworthiness for something else. And appeals to tracing in these cases lead some writers to a highly revisionist view, on which people are blameworthy for wrongdoing much less often than we ordinarily think (and our mistake, unfortunately, isn’t about how much wrongdoing there is). In this chapter, I set out the main claims of an argument for such a view and respond to it. I offer grounds for retaining a good many of the judgments that the revisionist would have us reject. The defense rests to a significant extent on commonsense views about the psychological capacities and abilities to act that people ordinarily possess, views that, as far as I can tell, revisionists have not shown to be mistaken. (shrink)

The question I wish to explore is this: Does idealism conflict with common sense? Unfortunately, the answer I give may seem like a rather banal one: It depends. What do we mean by ‘idealism’ and ‘common sense?’ I distinguish three main varieties of idealism: absolute idealism, Berkeleyan idealism, and dualistic idealism. After clarifying what is meant by common sense, I consider whether our three idealisms run afoul of it. The first does, but the latter (...) two don’t. I conclude that while Moore’s famous common sense critique is sound against external world skepticism, against Berkeleyan idealism and dualist idealism it is unavailing. (shrink)

Debunking arguments typically attempt to show that a set of beliefs or other intensional mental states bear no appropriate explanatory connection to the facts they purport to be about. That is, a debunking argument will attempt to show that beliefs about p are not held because of the facts about p. Such beliefs, if true, would then only be accidentally so. Thus, their causal origins constitute an undermining defeater. Debunking arguments arise in various philosophical domains, targeting beliefs about morality, the (...) existence of God, logic, and others. They have also arisen in material-object metaphysics, often aimed at debunking common-sense ontology. And while most of these arguments feature appeals to ‘biological and cultural contingencies’ that are ostensibly responsible for our beliefs about which kinds of objects exist, few of them take a serious look at what those contingencies might actually be. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to remedy this by providing empirical substantiation for a key premise in these debunking arguments by examining data from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that support a ‘debunking explanation’ of our common-sense beliefs and intuitions about which objects exist. Second, to argue that such data also undermines a particular kind of rationalist defense of common-sense ontology, sometimes employed as a response to the debunking threat. (shrink)

While contemporary philosophers have devoted vast amounts of attention to the language we use in describing and finding our way about the world of everyday experience, they have, with few exceptions, refused to see this world itself as a fitting object of theoretical concern. In what follows I shall seek to show how the commonsensical world might be treated ontologically as an object of investigation in its own right. At the same time I shall seek to establish how such a (...) treatment might help us better philosophically to understand the structures of both physical reality and cognition. (shrink)

Philosophers from Plotinus to Paul Churchland have yielded to the temptation to embrace doctrines which contradict the core beliefs of common sense. Philosophical realists have on the other hand sought to counter this temptation and to vindicate those core beliefs. The remarks which follow are to be understood as a further twist of the wheel in this never-ending battle. They pertain to the core beliefs of common sense concerning the external reality that is given in everyday (...) experience -the beliefs of folk physics, as we might call them. Just as critics of Churchland et al. have argued that the folk-psychological ontology of beliefs, desires, etc. yields the best explanation we can have of the order of cognitive phenomena conceived from the perspective of first-person experience, so we shall argue that (1) the commonsensical ontology of folk physics yields the best explanation we can have of our externally directed cognitive experience and that (2) an ontology of mesoscopic things, events and processes must play a role, in particular, in our best scientific theory of human action. (shrink)

Thomas Reid’s philosophy is a philosophy of mind—a Pneumatology in the idiom of 18th century Scotland. His overarching philosophical project is to construct an account of the nature and operations of the human mind, focusing on the two-way correspondence, in perception and action, between the thinking principle within and the material world without. Like his contemporaries, Reid’s treatment of these topics aimed to incorporate the lessons of the scientific revolution. What sets Reid’s philosophy of mind apart is his commitment to (...) a set of intuitive contingent truths he called the principles of common sense. This difference, as this chapter will show, enables Reid to construct an account of mind that resists the temptation to which so many philosophers in his day and ours succumb, i.e., the temptation, in his words, to materialize minds or spiritualize bodies. (shrink)

Mainstream economics, with its rational actor models, appears to be against common sense. For example, it does not take into account how tribal people are. They have a group identity and they are largely concerned with perpetuating that identity. I propose that mainstream economics is not more opposed to common sense than alternative frameworks. The appendix introduces a counterexample to transitivity of preferences, which I assume is where the chief value of the paper is.