Abstract
Inquirers engaged in the scientific enterprise search for facts and laws in a methodical and deliberate way. Their claims to know are controlled by the requirements of empirical testing and logical reasoning. But not all our knowledge is scientific; a great deal of it consists of the casual and unmethodical acquisition of information as we go about our daily tasks. This common sense knowledge is directed not only at particular facts. We also acquire general views about things. Without a substantial stock of generalizations in our possession, we would be at a loss to know how to interpret and make sense out of the variety of particular facts that flood in upon us at every moment of our waking lives. If we think of theories as sets of generalizations used for interpretive and explanatory purposes, then we are theoreticians whether we know it or not. We find ourselves with general views, and in many cases we do not know how we have arrived at them.
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Notes
J.L. Austin, “Other Minds,” Philosophical Papers ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961 ), pp. 73–74.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968). Part I, section 275.
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind ( London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1952 ), pp. 151–152.
Not only in common sense but also in scientific psychology. According to John Dewey, various philosophical traditions have recognized this function of perception: In Platonic and Aristotelian psychology….the senses as such are essentially organs of biological activity connected with the appetite.“ (John Dewey, ”An Empirical Survey of Empiricisms,“ in On Experience, Nature, and Freedom, ed. Richard Bernstein ( New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1960 ), p. 76 ).
Jonathan Westphal reflects the common sense view when he asserts: “I think it is absolutely certain that afterimages do have colour (though it does not strike my ear as correct to say that they are coloured), and I think that only philosophers who have painted themselves into a corner in the philosophy of mind would ever have is wished to deny such a flat empirical fact.” (Jonathan Westphal, Colour: Some Philosophical Problems from Wittgenstein ( Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987 ), p. 86 ).
Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes ( Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1988 ), pp. 54–59.
Irvin Rock, The Logic of Perception (Cambridge, Mass.: The Mn’ Press, 1985 ), Chapters I and II.
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Landesman, C. (1993). Understanding Vision: Common Sense Vs. Science. In: The Eye and the Mind. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 58. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3317-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3317-5_1
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