| | I'll stand by what I said in Post #1, but I wanted to clarify one thing based upon the comments of Mindy and Ted. I think there might be a presumption that when I characterized "common sense" as knowledge applied by "feeling", I was saying this in a disparaging way. That is not the case. Feelings are a physiological response to one's integrated values, and generally, our feelings help guide us towards behavior that is good for us by being in alignment with those values. So, when I speak of common sense, I have a healthy respect for its utility. What I was characterizing in Post #1 was the difference between common sense that is somewhat intuitive as opposed to rational analytic thought that one consciously controls. I do give a strong preference to the latter because it allows errors to be identified and corrected more readily than can be done at a more intuitive level.
Ted, I understand and appreciate your equating "common sense" with inductive reasoning, but this is certainly not what I have always understood "common sense" to mean. Which gets me thinking at a meta-level about this discussion itself. I think our differences here are, as I see it, an application of common sense itself! Unlike Merlin's reference to Aristotle*, we are not appealing to a definitive authority for our understanding of what "common sense" actually means. Instead, we each bring our own common sense understanding of the term to this discussion, and clearly, those views differ. And that was exactly my second point in Post #1. Common sense for one person will vary from that of another, precisely because the circumstances, experiences and values of people differ. What's makes sense for one, does not necessarily make sense for another.
Finally, with regards to the election of BO, I do think that many people voted in the past election based upon a feeling rather than upon a rigorous assessment of the consequences of proposed policies. "Change" and "Hope" are intellectually contentless proclamations, and appeal only to emotion, yet resonated with countless people. As Luke said, I do believe that many people believe that voting for BO was the common sense thing to do, and I do think that his appeal comes from a "feeling" of what it would be like to have a smart, articulate president in place of a bumbling, rudderless idiot. I think these feelings trumped careful reasoned consideration of the consequences of what BO was saying on specific policy issues. Maybe you do not think this example is an appropriate use of the term "common sense", and that's OK with me. I just wanted to make clearer what I was saying.
Regards,
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Jeff
* Merlin, thank you much for that link. I was unaware of this identification by Aristotle, so I have learned something new and important today.
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