Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:13:51.974Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Common sense in humanities and social sciences

from Part I - ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

Ivana Marková
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Get access

Summary

Bauer refers to three types of attitudes to common sense apparent in the articles published in the Journal Public Understanding of Science. These types summarise the issues discussed in this Chapter. One type is in the ‘tradition of debunking’ common sense. Common sense is ‘the place of superstitions, half-knowledge, complete and utter ignorance, misunderstanding and mumbo-jumbo, and virulent memes that give rise to antiscience’ (Bauer, 2009, p. 379). This type corresponds to the epistemological rupture between science and common sense. The second kind attempts to repair deluded or ignorant common sense and make it the ‘target of interventions’. Such contributions highlight public images and attempt to change people’s views in order to promote science and new technology, in particular among the young. This type appears to correspond to the idea of continuity between common sense and science and to the perspective of scientification of common sense. Finally, the third kind of attitude views common sense as a resource of knowledge; it is embedded in tradition and culture and it manifests itself in and through social representations enriching and innovating the understanding of social phenomena. This attitude is embodied in the theory of social representations and heterogeneous forms of knowledge.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Dialogical Mind
Common Sense and Ethics
, pp. 62 - 85
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×