Autor: Flanagan, Josef

Buch: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Titel: Quest for Self-Knowledge

Stichwort: Common sense, Urteil; Rechtfertigung über die Gewissheit; Norm für richtiges Urteil auf der Stufe des common-sense

Kurzinhalt: The problem in making correct common-sense judgments is that these limits are very specialized, which means that the range of such judgments is always circumscribed and limited to a descriptive context of concrete, particular circumstances.

Textausschnitt: 26/5 Common sense is a specialized pattern of knowing that is interested in solving our practical day-to-day problems of living in intelligent and reasonable ways. This pattern of cognitional activities develops to deal with concrete particular issues, which means that it is not prepared to deal with theoretical, comprehensive concerns. While common-sense knowers must learn how to cooperate with members of their family and neighborhood, while they must learn how to cooperate economically, politically, educationally, and religiously with other cooperating groups, common-sense knowers do not abstract from their own subject-centered, descriptive understandings and judgings of things. They do not seek the sort of comprehensive understanding of social, economic, and political structures that we find among human scientific knowers, such as sociologists and economists. But this does not mean that common-sense knowers do not or cannot judge correctly within the limits in which they operate. (127; Fs)

27/5 The problem in making correct common-sense judgments is that these limits are very specialized, which means that the range of such judgments is always circumscribed and limited to a descriptive context of concrete, particular circumstances.1 As an example there are the common-sense schemes that teachers acquire in learning how to communicate the subject matter of their discipline. Pedagogy is a skill or art that has to be learned; teachers observe, listen to advice, experiment and test different approaches, adjusting and correcting until they reach a certain mastery and feel comfortable in dealing with a range of different experiences in pragmatically successful ways. At this point teachers have acquired a context of judgments that permits them to prepare and organize their subject matter and to design effective means of communicating their material to a group of students. The level of mastery attained depends on the ease with which teachers are able to address different pedagogical problems and situations, correctly judging the receptivity of different types of students with respect to different materials. A teacher who has acquired such a set of practical judgments has a cluster of practical insights to which she or he adds, in every new situation or for every new object, the further insights for dealing successfully with this new situation. The teacher keeps generalizing or analogizing by grasping that every new situation can be dealt with as prior situations were judged. This is the way we reason, reflect, and judge in a common-sense pattern of knowing. (127; Fs)

28/5 It is natural for knowers to generalize, to argue from one particular case to successive similar cases. The problem, however, is not merely to analogize or generalize, but to do so accurately. In other words, the practically wise teacher knows how to size up a class and shift gears when he or she grasps that certain modifications in teaching are needed. Failure to make such modifications reveals how easy it is to generalize that the present situation and its problems can be solved in the same way as in prior situations when, in fact, there are differences in the 'givens' of this situation that demand to be attended to, understood, and judged in slightly different ways. As a result, the teacher blunders, and instead of understanding and correctly judging the situation, he or she misunderstands and misjudges. (128; Fs)

29/5 To analyze and generalize from one situation and set of problems to the next, you need to check carefully and make certain that the situations are, in fact, actually similar. If you do make a mistake and misapprehend, then you may correct the mistake the next time by asking, Have I correctly understood this situation?; Have I reviewed and checked out this new situation carefully, allowing sufficient time for questioning to bring to light problematic differences that are sufficiently different from the prior sequence of situations to require new understandings and new procedures in order to achieve successful results? (128; Fs)

30/5 How do you as judger know whether your critical questioning has been given sufficient time to bring to light problematic areas in your present practical situation? The norm for true judgments is sufficient evidence precisely as sufficient, and such evidence is sufficient when your insights meet the issues and problems precisely and correctly. The standard for correct insights, then, is correct questioning. Do your practical insights meet the demands of your critical wondering as it operates within the limits of common-sense interests? Such interests are limited, and so the problem is to establish the limits correctly. Thus in the case of learning a craft, we speak of skilled workers as persons who have learned their trade; they have reached a level of competence and mastery, which means they can judge correctly what the problems and situations are for a wide array of cases. The point is that skilled workers are able to make correct judgments in solving practical problems because they are operating in specialized, limited contexts in which they have already acquired the competence and skill to size up problematic situations correctly and to solve them easily and effectively. The wise worker, like Aristotle's wise person, knows 'the right thing to do, the right time, and the right way to do it.' (128; Fs)

31/5 It is important to insist that such judgments are correct or true only within very limited contexts. They are limited to particular times and places, particular problems, and particular solutions. Quite a different type of judgment is needed if you wish to understand and judge correctly how the entire physical universe actually operates. (128f; Fs)