There's that expression again - "...common sense..." Whenever I ask, no one can tell me what that is. It dang sure ain't what most folks think it is. Most folks think it is some innate ability of a person to arrive a good decisions. Sorry to burst (or 'bust') your bubbles, but there is no such thing. The ability to make good decisions has two elements: 1) raw intellect, and 2) knowledge. Those things combine to allow a person to make good decisions. But, one without the other is meaningless.
The raw intellect part is what you are born with, and no one can improve that. It is what it is. It is your ability to process "knowledge," and to be able to apply that knowledge to a given situation.
Knowledge is gained in two ways: formal education, and experience. And everybody needs both. Academics give you factual information that can't be just magically absorbed. Experience shows you what academic elements look like, and how they work. Football example: We can, and must, teach everybody what a false start is. But, that, in itself, is not enough. When a person then witnesses a false start AFTER being taught what it is, the light bulb brightens, and suddenly, they can apply that situation to other similar, but not necessarily identical, situations, and, if they have enough raw intellect, they can analyze what they see to determine if they see a false start, or legal action.
Nobody is born with "...common sense..." as what most folks think it is. A guy with multiple doctorates, but no real experience, can't possibly make the best decisions. Likewise, a guy with no formal education, but who has been working and "out in the world" his whole life can't make the best decisions, either.
Abe Lincoln may be the most classic example of someone with both intellect and knowledge. Being a poor farm boy, he certainly had the experience of living off the land. But he also had the self-motivated desire to acquire academic knowledge. Thus, he had all of the tools to lead people reasonably well.
In my experience, every time somebody throws out the expression, "...common sense...," they are just covering and/or attempting to use that as an excuse for their lack or knowledge or experience. And, I have found that many of those folks lack one or the other, mostly out of simple laziness. As in this case. "Let's spot the ball on a yard line for every dead ball, then we'll never have to measure, because I'm way more important than the players, or the game itself, and I just want to get this game over as quickly as possible, so I can collect my check and go home. Actual rules aren't important. I've watched football on TV. We'll just use common sense."
Those that think this way should be ashamed of themselves, and should go find some other activity - one that doesn't expect effort and integrity.
Common sense
Not to be confused with Common knowledge.
For the American revolutionary war pamphlet by Thomas Paine, see Common Sense. For other uses, see Common sense (disambiguation).
Common sense (often just known as sense) is sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that is shared by (i.e. common to) nearly all people.[1]
The everyday understanding of common sense derives from historical philosophical discussion involving several European languages. Related terms in other languages include Latin sensus communis, Greek αἴσθησις κοινὴ (aísthēsis koinḕ), and French bon sens, but these are not straightforward translations in all contexts. Similarly in English, there are different shades of meaning, implying more or less education and wisdom: "good sense" is sometimes seen as equivalent to "common sense", and sometimes not.[2]
Aristotle, the first person known to have discussed "common sense", described it as the ability with which animals (including humans) process sense-perceptions, memories and imagination (φρονεῖν, phroneîn) in order to reach many types of basic judgments. In his scheme, only humans have real reasoned thinking (νοεῖν, noeîn), which takes them beyond their common sense.
"Common sense" has at least two specific philosophical meanings. One is as a capability of the animal soul (ψῡχή, psūkhḗ) proposed by Aristotle to explain how the different senses join together and enable discrimination of particular objects by people and other animals. This common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thought, but cooperates with both.
A second philosophical use of the term is Roman-influenced and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.[3] Just like the everyday meaning, both of these refer to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge that most people are expected to share naturally, even if they cannot explain why. All these meanings of "common sense", including the everyday ones, are interconnected in a complex history and have evolved during important political and philosophical debates in modern Western civilization, notably concerning science, politics and economics.[4] The interplay between the meanings has come to be particularly notable in English, as opposed to other western European languages, and the English term has become international.[5]
Since the Age of Enlightenment the term "common sense" has been used for rhetorical effect both approvingly, as a standard for good taste and source of scientific and logical axioms, and disapprovingly, as equivalent to vulgar prejudice and superstition.[6] It was at the beginning of the 18th century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: "Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body."[7] This began with Descartes's criticism of it, and what came to be known as the dispute between "rationalism" and "empiricism". In the opening line of one of his most famous books, Discourse on Method, Descartes established the most common modern meaning, and its controversies, when he stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (bon sens), but it is rarely used well. Therefore, a skeptical logical method described by Descartes needs to be followed and common sense should not be overly relied upon.[
![8]](http://www.refstripes.com/forum/Smileys/classic/cool.gif "Cool")
In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for modern thinking. It was contrasted to metaphysics, which was, like Cartesianism, associated with the Ancient Régime. Thomas Paine's polemical pamphlet Common Sense (1776) has been described as the most influential political pamphlet of the 18th century, affecting both the American and French revolutions.[6] Today, the concept of common sense, and how it should best be used, remains linked to many of the most perennial topics in epistemology and ethics, with special focus often directed at the philosophy of the modern social sciences.
