I was reading this review of Timothy Williamson’s new (introductory-level) book recently when I came across this striking remark: “philosophy, Williamson tells us, starts from common sense, that is, 'what most members in a society know' (p. 8)”. This sentiment should be familiar to anyone who does academic philosophy. During conference talks and in books and articles, one often hears the phrase “that seems counterintuitive” as a strike against an argument or theory. Yet although this appears to be a very common view—that philosophy should begin with and ‘answer to commonsense’—it really could not be further from my own conception of what philosophy should do or the methods it should involve.
My concerns about philosophy ‘starting with commonsense’ are partly rooted in history. To put it bluntly, commonsense has a terrible track record, both in the sciences and in philosophy. Begin with science. Here, we learn that Galileo was basically run out of town from the University of Pisa because his mechanistic philosophy contradicted the Aristotelian ‘commonsense’ of the time. (Cropper, pp. 5-6) Then of course there was Darwin, whose theory of evolution by natural selection was assailed by numerous critics as an assault on the ‘commonsensical’ idea that humans are unique, divine creations. (Clark, pp. 135-41) Then there was Einstein, whose theory of relativity was mocked by a number of eminent scientists—most famously Philip Lenard—for flouting the “simple, sound common sense” that space and time must be absolute. (Hillman et al., pp. 37, 55, 57) As physicist Sir Oliver Lodge once put it, relativity is just "repugnant to commonsense." (Brian, p. 102) Suffice it to say, all of these affairs (and many others) turned out to be a pretty bad look for commonsense. Throughout the history of science, commonsense has a pretty awful track record.
What about philosophy? Here, ‘commonsense’ hardly fares better. For example, in 17th Century England, Sir Robert Filmer enjoyed widespread fame for defending the ‘commonsensical’ idea that God endowed kings with a divine right to rule. However, this ‘commonsense’ did not stand the test of time. Instead, it was John Locke’s heretical idea that all people have natural rights—contrary to the classist and religious prejudices of the time—that served to influence future political and philosophical thought. Similarly, if we go back much further, to ancient Greece, we find that Aristotle took it to be simple commonsense that some people are fit to be slaves; Pythagoras thought it simple commonsensical that one should not eat beans, look in a mirror beside a lamp, or worship without shoes on. (Baird, p. 16) And so on. What we find here, again—throughout philosophical history, as in scientific history—is that what one generation takes to be commonsense the next takes to be foolish prejudices.
This is illustrated perhaps nowhere better than in the neo-Platonist Thomas Taylor’s satirical response to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman entitled, “A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes”—where Taylor satirically argues, ‘if women have rights, why not animals too?”. Yes, in Taylor's satire, we get the following gem, where Taylor openly mocks the idea of moral equality:
IT APPEARS AT FIRST SIGHT SOMEWHAT SINGULAR, that a moral truth of the highest importance, and most illustrious evidence, should have been utterly unknown to the ancients, and not yet fully perceived, and universally acknowledged, even in such an enlightened age as the present. The truth I allude to is, the equality of all things, with respect to their intrinsic and real dignity and worth…. (p. 5)
And thus much may suffice, for an historical proof, that brutes are equal to men. It only now remains (and this must be the province of some able hand) to demonstrate the same great truth in a similar manner, of vegetable, minerals, and even the most apparently contemptible clod of earth; that thus this sublime theory being copiously and accurately discussed, and its truth established by an indisputable series of facts, government may be entirely subverted, subordination abolished, and all things everywhere, and in every respect, be common to all. (p. 28)
Of course, Taylor and his followers thought that extending rights to animals was so obviously antithetical to commonsense that it sufficed to demonstrate the absurdity of extending equal rights to women–not to mention the basic principle most of us now take to be obvious: that everyone is entitled to equal moral concern.
More broadly, if we look at philosophical history, it’s simply not ‘commonsense’ theories that have survived the test of time. In their time, Thomas Reid and William Whewell—commonsense moral intuitionists—were considered leading moral philosophers. However, moral philosophers today hardly study or engage with them. Why? Because, as John Stuart Mill put it, in his time 'commonsense' was used to defend the divine right of monarchs, the superior status of aristocracy, and the power of the church. (Reeves, p. 164) Mill found this repugnant, arguing that, “the regeneration required, of man and society…can never be effected under the influence of a philosophy which makes opinions their own proof, and feelings their own justification.” (Ibid.) For Mill, ‘commonsense’ is little more than “an apparatus for converting…prevailing opinions, on matters of morality, into reasons for themselves” (p. 241).
I am with Mill, Hume, Patricia Churchland, Dan Dennett, and other naturalistically-inclined philosophers. I don’t think philosophy should be in the business of ‘beginning with’ or ‘answering to’ commonsense at all. Commonsense is often (usually, I’d say) mistaken. Our task should be to place philosophy on better evidential foundations than that–specifically, on the findings of natural science, or at least on the kinds of principles of theory-selection that govern scientific practice. I know that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for ‘natural philosophy.’ Still, for all that, I am increasingly inclined to think it’s the best way to ensure that philosophical arguments and speculation are rooted in facts rather than in ill-founded, regressive prejudices of 'commonsense'—the former of which the world, it seems, now needs as much as (if not more than) ever.
In any case, whenever I hear philosophers say things like, "That's counterintuitive", "That's a serious bullet to bite", or "commonsense dictates", my inclination is not to find a way to make philosophy consistent with commonsense, but instead to figure out whether–given the actual facts that can be posited consistent with sound principles of theory-selection–commonsense has any truth to it at all!
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