Scientific Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy

Rik Peels, Jeroen de Ridder, René van Woudenberg, Rik Peels, Jeroen de Ridder, René van Woudenberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367532673
  9781138479982
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351064200
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Epistemology in Philosophy

Common sense philosophy holds that widely and deeply held beliefs are justified in the absence of defeaters. While this tradition has always had its philosophical detractors who have defended various forms of skepticism or have sought to develop rival epistemological views, recent advances in several scientific disciplines claim to have debunked the reliability of the faculties that produce our common sense beliefs. At the same time, however, it seems reasonable that we cannot do without common sense beliefs entirely. Arguably, science and the scientific method are built on, and continue to depend on, common sense.

This collection of essays debates the tenability of common sense in the face of recent challenges from the empirical sciences. It explores to what extent scientific considerations—rather than philosophical considerations—put pressure on common sense philosophy. The book is structured in a way that promotes dialogue between philosophers and scientists. Noah Lemos, one of the most influential contemporary advocates of the common sense tradition, begins with an overview of the nature and scope of common sense beliefs, and examines philosophical objections to common sense and its relationship to scientific beliefs. Then, the volume features essays by scientists and philosophers of science who discuss various proposed conflicts between commonsensical and scientific beliefs: the reality of space and time, about the nature of human beings, about free will and identity, about rationality, about morality, and about religious belief. Notable philosophers who embrace the common sense tradition respond to these essays to explore the connection between common sense philosophy and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, physics, and psychology.

1
Introduction

The Paradox of Science and Common Sense

Rik Peels, Jeroen de Ridder, and René van Woudenberg

Common sense philosophy has a venerable tradition, tracing back all the way to Aristotle. But it is only since the 18th century that philosophers began to self-identify as common sense philosophers. Examples include Thomas Reid (1710–1796),¹ Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), who along with others, are often jointly referred to as the ‘Scottish school of common sense philosophy’.² More recent examples include G. E. Moore (1873–1958),³ Roderick Chisholm (1916–1999),⁴ William G. Lycan (1945–),⁵ and Noah Lemos (1956–).⁶ Moreover, many philosophers who don’t self-identify as common sense philosophers, nonetheless avail themselves of ideas, concepts, and principles that those who do so self-identify have capitalized on. In this introduction, we provide a somewhat rough sketch of what common sense is supposed to be. We then consider what common sense philosophy amounts to. After that, we introduce a paradox that takes center stage in this volume. We spell out ways in which science can potentially debunk common sense. We also explain why this issue matters and then consider the alleged tensions between science and common sense in more detail for each of the book’s chapters.

1 What Is Common Sense?⁷

When one tries to pinpoint the referent of ‘common sense’ as the phrase is used in the philosophical literature, one is quickly struck by the fact that it refers to rather different kinds of things: to a particular collection of beliefs, a set of intuitions, a number of principles, a belief-forming faculty, or a loose array of methodological rules.

The Greeks used the notion to refer to beliefs that are widely held. That Zeus is the highest god in the pantheon was widely believed in ancient Greece and hence qualified as a common sense belief.⁸ In later times, philosophers wielded a more restricted notion of common sense belief. Thomas Reid, for instance, delineated common sense beliefs as beliefs that are not only widely held but also have properties such as that their denials are absurd, that they are not believed on the basis of scientific investigation, and that they are foundational to practices that humans are ineluctably engaged in.⁹ Take the belief that there is life and intelligence in the people we converse with. This belief is widely shared, its denial is absurd, it is not based on scientific investigation, and it is foundational to practices such as buying and selling, education, and leading a social life. This notion of common sense is much more restricted than the notion that the Greeks used. That Zeus is the highest god of the pantheon was once widely believed. But its denial is not absurd, it is not based on scientific investigation, and it is not foundational to a practice that humans are ineluctably engaged in. Therefore, it is not a common sense belief in Reid’s sense.

‘Common sense’ is also often used to refer to certain intuitions that we have. If we think of intuitions as intellectual seemings, then the following sentences state intellectual seemings: that there presently is a body that is your body, to use an example from G. E. Moore, and that no proposition can be true and false at the same time. An intellectual seeming is not necessarily a belief, nor does it necessarily lead to one. It may intellectually seem to you that velocities are additive, but you might not believe it for reasons having to do with Einstein’s theory of special relativity. But often there is nothing wrong with believing what intellectually seems to be the case, for instance when we intuit and believe that the thoughts we are conscious of must have a subject. In cases like these, there is a common sense intuition of, as well as a common sense belief in, the same proposition.

The phrase ‘common sense’ is sometimes also used to refer to principles of reasoning and inquiry that are widely held to be utterly plausible and wholly unproblematic. Examples include the following:

• The Principle of Credulity (it is probable that what seems to be the case actually is the case)¹⁰ and the Principle of Epistemic Conservatism (it is unreasonable to revise or alter a belief that one has without good reason to do so)¹¹—these are epistemological principles
• The Principle of Parsimony (Occam’s razor: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity),¹² the principle that every change has a cause, and the principle that everything that begins to exist must have a cause—these are metaphysical principles¹³
• The Principle of Double Effect (there is a morally relevant difference between those consequences of our actions that we intend and those we do not intend but still foresee)¹⁴ as well as the principle that like cases should be treated equally—these are moral principles
• The Principle of Simplicity (Ceteris paribus: simpler explanations should be preferred over complex ones)¹⁵—this figures in the philosophy of science

Occasionally, although the idea never had many adherents, Thomas Reid spoke of a ‘faculty’ of common sense—a belief-forming faculty that operates in humans alongside perception, memory, and reason.¹⁶

Finally, ‘common sense’ is used to refer to what could loosely be called a ‘method’—a method for doing philosophy.¹⁷ When that ‘method’ is used or applied in philosophy, the activity as well as its results could be called ‘common sense philosophy’.

2 What Is Common Sense Philosophy?

In broad strokes, and in light of what we saw that ‘common sense’ can refer to, common sense philosophy is philosophy that is characterized by four methodological features.¹⁸

First, common sense beliefs, intuitions, and principles have a strong and privileged epistemic status: they have default authority, and they should only be given up, if that is possible at all, in the face of extraordinarily strong reasons. Moore held that no reason is strong enough to force us to give up a common sense belief: “The common sense view of the world”, he said, “is in certain fundamental features wholly true”.¹⁹ Other common sense philosophers hold common sense beliefs and intuitions to be defeasible.

Second, common sense philosophy evaluates philosophical views by how well they square with common sense beliefs, common sense intuitions, and common sense principles. If a view denies, or entails the denial of, common sense beliefs, intuitions, or principles, then that is decidedly a strike against it.

Third, if a philosophical view goes against common sense, then it must be rejected unless there is extraordinarily strong evidence in its favor. As noted, Moore thought this was never going to happen for some views.

Fourth and finally, when common sense philosophy is not engaged in philosophical critique, but in constructive projects, it treats common sense beliefs, intuitions, and principles as data points that should be given their rightful place. For Thomas Reid, common sense is the soil on which the flower of philosophy should bloom: “Philosophy… has no other root but the principles of Common Sense: it grows out of them, and draws its nourishment from them: severed from this root, its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it dies and rots”.²⁰

To further characterize common sense philosophy, something needs to be said about the content of common sense beliefs themselves. We have seen that common sense philosophers maintain that an important set of widely and deeply held beliefs has an epistemically strong status: in the absence of defeaters they are epistemically justified. Or, as it is sometimes put, common sense beliefs are innocent until proven guilty. But as we saw in the first section, modern common sense philosophers do not accord that status to just any widely and deeply held belief but only to those that have further features such as that their denials are absurd and that they are not believed on the basis of some kind of scientific investigation. Common sense philosophers also hold that many of these beliefs in fact face no defeaters. Although any particular list is bound to be controversial, the following items are putative examples of common sense beliefs:

• There exists a mind-external material world.
• Our basic doxastic faculties are reliable.
• Some of our knowledge is a priori knowledge.
• If something seems to be so, it probably is so (the principle of credulity).
• Humans can be held responsible for their actions.
• Responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise.
• Time and space are real.
• External relations exist.
• Human beings have identity over time.
• Some things have intrinsic value.

These beliefs—or a selection of them or beliefs like them—thus form a crucial methodological bedrock and touchstone for common sense philosophy both in its constructive and critical guises.

3 The Paradox of Science and Common Sense

Common sense philosophy has often been criticized by other philosophers as being unduly naïve and superficial or as not really being philosophy. David Hume is of course a prominent historical example and Immanuel Kant another. More recently Paul Moser and Richard Fumerton have joined the fold.²¹ Some of these critics have adopted some form of skepticism, others have embraced idealism, yet others have developed transcendental forms of philosophy. This goes to show that the debate about common sense philosophy among philosophers is still going on, even if it is mostly not explicitly framed as a discussion about common sense philosophy or about the role of common sense in philosophy.

The present volume, however, is devoted not to philosophical challenges to common sense but to scientific ones. Science is often felt and claimed to be at odds with common sense.²² One classical example is the clash between our face-value ideas about medium-sized material objects and what contemporary physics tells us about the nature of such objects. Sir Arthur Eddington’s famous discussion of the two tables eloquently expresses the thought:

Yes; there are duplicates of every object about me—two tables, two chairs, two pens.… One of them has been familiar to me from earliest years. It is a commonplace object of that environment which I call the world.… It has extension; it is comparatively permanent; it is colored; above all it is substantial….

Table No. 2 is my scientific table. It is a more recent acquaintance and I do not feel so familiar with it. It does not belon...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• 1 Introduction: The Paradox of Science and Common Sense
• 2 Common Sense, Philosophy, and Science
• 3 How the Many Worlds Interpretation Brings Common Sense to Paradoxical Quantum Experiments
• 4 Why the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Needs More Than Hilbert Space Structure
• 5 Common Sense and Relativistic Supercoincidence
• 6 Coincidence Problems Without Properties
• 7 Conceptual Revisions: Intentions and Free Will in the Light of Cognitive Neuroscience
• 8 The Emergence of Free, Intentional Control: Reply to Haselager
• 9 Psychological Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy: Illusions of Introspection and Free Will
• 10 Radically Self-Deceived? Not So Fast
• 11 Common Sense Morality and Its Evolutionary Underpinnings
• 12 Evolution and Moral Common Sense: Why You Can’t Have It Both Ways; a Response to Ruse
• 13 Dual Inheritance, Common Sense, and the Justification of Religious Belief
• 14 Cultural Evolution and Debunking Arguments: A Response to Davis
• List of Contributors
• Index