Online research in philosophy

Economic concepts and methods are used to throw light on some aspects of common-sense ethics and the difference between it and Utilitarianism. (1) Very few exceptions are allowed to the rules of common-sense ethics, because of the cost of information required to justify an exception to Conscience and to other people. No such stringency characterizes Utilitarianism, an abstract system constructed by philosophers. (2) Rule Utilitarianism is neither consistent with common-sense ethics, nor does it maximize utility as has been claimed for it. The same is true of more recent variants of Utilitarianism. (3) Second best and first best are usually identical in common-sense ethics. They are often identical in Utilitarianism when a moral situation can be represented by a Prisoner's Dilemma. However, problems arise in permissive forms of Utilitarianism when it is not obvious that second best should be applied.

Scott Sehon argues for a complex view about the relation between commonsense psychology and the physical sciences.1 He rejects any sort of Cartesian dualism and believes that the common-sense psychological facts supervene on the physical facts. Nevertheless he asserts that there is an important respect in which common-sense psychology is independent of the physical sciences. Despite supervenience, we are not to expect any sort of reduction of common-sense psychology to physical science, nor are we to expect the physical sciences to conflict with common-sense psychology.

I. The framework. 1, Aristotle's project and methods. 2, The perceptual capacity of the soul. 3, The sensory apparatus. 4, The common sense and the related capacities -- II. The terminology. 1, Overlooked occurrences of the phrase 'common sense'. 2, De anima III.1 425a27. 3, De partibus animalium IV.10 686a31. 4, De memoria et reminiscentia 1 450a10. 5, De anima III.7 431b5. 6, Conclusions on the terminology -- III. Functions of the common sense. 1, Simultaneous perception and cross-modal binding. 2, Perceptual discrimination. 3, Waking, sleep, and control of the senses. 4, Perceiving that what we see and hear, and monitoring of the senses. 5, Other roles of the common sense -- Conclusion.

In this paper I discuss the circumstances in which it would be right to revise a common-sense psychological categorisation -- such as the common-sense categorisation of emotions -- in the light of the results of empirical investigation. I argue that an answer to that question, familiar from eliminitivist arguments, should be rejected, and suggest that the issue turns on the ontological commitments of the explanations that common-sense psychological states enter into.

Popular and philosophical notions of common sense are briefly reviewed in terms of their possible applications in the theory of management. The concept of common sense is here interpreted as a secondary device in decision-making, and ought to be considered only in the context of a much more complex information-knowledge process. The knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. C. E. Stowe.

In this paper I discuss the circumstances in which it would be right to revise a common-sense psychological categorisation -- such as the common-sense categorisation of emotions -- in the light of the results of empirical investigation. I argue that an answer to that question, familiar from eliminitivist arguments, should be rejected, and suggest that the issue turns on the ontological commitments of the explanations that common-sense psychological states enter into.

After a definition of ?common sense? it is argued that sociology and common sense both do and ought to interact with one another. Four positions on the sociology?common sense relation in the light of the interaction thesis are then critically discussed: sociology must break with common sense; sociology must be based on common sense; sociology and common sense are incomparable; and sociology and common sense are identical. The first two of these positions are further sub?divided in terms of whether the arguments in their favour are or are not independent of one's conceptions of sociology and common sense. Each of these positions is illustrated by means of a case study of one author. The final section involves a consideration of ethnomethodology on the basis of the above typology: it is argued that ethnomethodology cannot find a site on the sociology?common sense question which is compatible with its basic commitments.

I defend, in this paper, a version of a philosophy of common sense. I have use of some things from Reid's account of these matters, others from Wittgenstein's. Scepticism looms large—as do the questions of arguments for and examples of common sense. At least two different notions of common sense emerge, one of which has often been overlooked by philosophers.