When my common-sense radar "pings", I think it important to ascertain exactly why it is pinging. If I am unable to understand and clearly state the problem, I'm obviously missing something, and I don't feel comfortable proceeding until the issue is resolved.

Sometimes I find, after breaking down and analyzing the common-sense ping, that my common-sense objection is a fairly complex and sophisticated one. Its analysis sheds a broader yet clearer light on the original idea in question. I usually come away from the analysis with at least a better understanding of the idea's relationship, or apparent relationship, to other ideas, very often the reason for the initial "ping".

Why would anyone dismiss such a valuable thought aid? If your common-sense is not happy, there's a reason, and you'd better know just what that reason is, well enough to state it clearly and completely. Well enough to successfully argue against its evidence and logic. At least, IMO.

rebecca

Only a God could revive this Lazarus.

Don't you think it is good common sense that if you plan to buy a car, you should think about the gas mileage? It would not, for instance, be a commonsense decision to purchase a Hummer.

---------- Post added 03-04-2010 at 07:58 PM ----------

Suppose someone said that he believed that Luxembourg could win a war against present day China. What would you think? Would your commonsense alarm ring?

What I think will not revive him.

He was a hellava guy. *raises glass*

I think that avoids the question. What about you? I think that anyone who thought that Luxembourg could win a war against China would be using his commonsense. Do you?

That is a hypothetical. The U.S. would step in.

It certainly is hypothetical. But, what has that to do with the US stepping in? That simply avoids the issue. Would it be physically possible for Luxembourg win a war against China if she fought it? That's a yes or a no. Please don't say yes. It would be scary to know that someone could say yes. And it would be just as scary if someone said, we don't know.

But I think that it could come down to being a matter of highly technological inter-continental missles and not one of pure man power. Wars are notoriously unpredictable.

Really. Is that really your view? You think that it is even physically possible that Luxembourg has Intercontinental missiles? I did not say "logically possible". It is. I said, "physically possible". Or even "epistemologically possible", which is to say, given all we know.

notes on: A Defence of Common Sense by G.E.Moore

He is still around, and as Mark Twain said after his obituary came out by mistake, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

All I know about Luxembourg is that it is a rich and small Western European country. Geo-politically it falls under the NATO umbrella. So in geo-political terms China may not be the ultimate victor in the war.

Sometimes I wonder if common sense is like a phoenix: he dies for a short time but comes back again anew.

I will be attending this noble man's funeral; and although he has fallen into obscurity, he still shines like a gossamer phatasm, a fallen figure of the once proud, vivified, and swift beauty of reason beyond the scope of madness and insanity. I will very much mourn him and so should the rest of humanity. Let us never forget all that this man, laying here before us, has given; let us never forget the clarity of thought. Let us never forget the assertion in our judgment. Let us never forget the firm grounding upon which he gave us rest, or of the determination he instills within us. Let us never forget the future he built for us, nay, the road upon which we walk with such ease. Let us never shy away from his presence within ourselves.

Have you not heard? Have you not gazed upon that which is so obvious to reason? We have, ladies and gentlemen, forgotten all that common sense has given us. His clarity fogged, his judgment disunited, his grounding stripped bit by bit ever so carefully that we walk the finest line any individual could. We dance upon a tightrope, poised to fall at any minute if we further forget all this man has done for us!

But I have not answered my questions, but merely alluded to the catastrophic crescendo which has bestowed upon us the facts that we can neither turn our eyes and ears from: we have killed common sense! Through all our neglect we have let this noble man shrivel up to the point where he remains unrecognizable; to the point were he begs, scrambling to gather former glory!

And yet there is hope! But we must not falter to revive him! We must be swift, enforcing sound judgment along the way. We must unite him bit by precious bit, until he returns to mankind unified in all his former glory.

If you believe that common sense has died, I suspect that you have spent too much time in the wrong company. You may wish to get out into the world, and have a conversation with some "regular" person, say a janitor at the local college, and see if he or she is able to do some things sensibly or not. Of course, if you find a janitor who is unfortunate enough to have read Hegel, then you will want to look elsewhere for common sense.

Is it ironic that the uneducated janitor is more sensible than the modern educated philosopher?