"I have myself called pragmatism 'critical common-sensism...'" So said Peirce back in 1907. Common-sense is one of the more important notions in Peirce, yet frustratingly one of the topics he didn't focus in on that much. The best lecture on the subject is "Issues in Pragmatism," unfortunately one of the more important papers of his not available online. I did put up some important excerpts from it which I've referred back to a few times. Why is common sense so important for Peirce? Well it allows one, in a way to ground both science and belief in general without recourse to epistemic foundationalism. Indeed a common problem in science is a great way to introduce the power of Peirce's approach.
One famous philosophical problem in science is the incommensurability of theories. That is, can we consider terms from different theories the same thing. Consider for example the notion of an electron from the 19th century and its meaning today. Clearly today the meaning of electrons is wrapped up with quantum theory, statistical mechanics and other conceptions unknown in the early days of the use of the term. Given that the modern meaning can't be translated into the earlier theory, dare we really say they are the same thing? We can ask the same thing of heat. Consider the 18th century with primitive thermodynamics and the idea of heat as a kind of a fluid. Can we translate that notion into the modern sense of heat in terms of the kinetic energy of particles? They have fairly radically different meanings.
Many philosophers say that we can't translate sentences from one theory to an other.
How does Peirce deal with this? Through his notion of vagueness. Now most philosophical analysis of vagueness focuses in on the sense of vagueness concerned with fuzzy boundaries. So one might ask when the mountain ends and the valley begins. Likewise philosophical analysis of vagueness sometimes concerns itself with ambiguity.
Peirce focuses in on an other sense, which is the topic of the extended quotation I mentioned. Basically vagueness is a communicated sign in which the sign is partially determined in meaning, yet part is left as yet undetermined. Yet the hearer is not open to interpret the meaning that is left undefined. An example of this might be the sentence, "A man I am thinking of wore black today." The man is partially defined by the predicate "wore black" yet the hearer is not open to determine themselves which man is being spoken of. That is under the control of the speaker.
A related kind of sign Peirce speaks of is that of generality. It, like vagueness, consists of a sign left partially undetermined. Yet the determination is left to the hearer. The sentence "Bachelors are male" is an example of this. The hearer is able to pick a bachelor to apply this to.
Some have unfortunately oversimplified Peirce's conception to just represent the existential and universal logic operators. (Some X, All X) However this is incorrect for it misses the point that the determination is left to the speaker or hearer. That is, there is something akin to a game theoretical approach of language. I could speak further on that point, but I'll leave it for a latter time. The point being that these two conceptions are tied to strategies and purposes. (Unsurprising given the place Peirce holds final causation)
How does this all related to common sense?
Well for Peirce common sense was among the most tested and most true of all our beliefs. Yet the beliefs of common sense were also inherently vague. The mistake philosophers make in criticizing common sense is in assuming that the conceptions are precise and determinate. They are not. Further (and this is one of the places Peirce differs with Thomas Reid) common sense is inherently tied to a primitive life style and change only very slowly. That is, common sense is the set of extensively tested but vague beliefs dealing with the regular life of average folk. Common sense is still fallible of course, as are all beliefs. However the very fact they are so used and so successful means they are among the most true beliefs we hold.
How does this apply to science? Well scientific method consists of extending vague notions. That is, it attempts to find the determination of these concepts that is left undetermined for us. We do this through what Peirce calls hypostatic abstraction. That is postulating an entity not thought of before that is a relation that explains similarity between two phenomena. That is, we conceive of an abstraction that explains a similarity. So seeing two robins we might postulate the notion of robinness. One quickly sees the similarity to Platonism, and indeed Peirce largely got the notion from the medieval realism of Duns Scotus. Yet one can also see that this is exactly what science does in postulating theoretical entities. Peirce (and science) differ from Platonism only by not reifying these abstractions. (That is, not treating them as things)
This sounds controversial until one quickly realizes that we do this all the time. Peirce's example is of a drug that makes one sleepy. We postulate some peculiarity in the drug that makes a person sleepy. That notion of "some peculiarity in the drug" is an example of hypostatic abstraction.
How does this relate to common sense? Well common sense beliefs are examples of this hypostatic abstraction - postulates - that have survived the long test of time. Often the test of centuries. Common sense is able to be so certain though precisely because it is so vague. Science then fills in the gaps, moving from vagueness to deeper understanding.
This then explains how competing theories can be compared. Each theory is based upon some vague notion common to all people in common sense. New hypostatic abstractions are put forth as part of the scientific method. They are these put to the test. The theories are commensurate precisely because they share this common vague origin. They can be tested and then accepted or discarded precisely because of the new postulates added to our vague notions.
Thus, for instance, heat is grounded first in our common sense notions of heat due to our experience of many hot things and the change what we feel as we encountered. The kinetic theory of heat is an expansion on this common sense conception we all share. So to was the earlier substance theory of heat. The substance theory was put out and then found to be false, so we accepted the kinetic theory (and then later the fuller quantum theory which filled in the vague kinetic theory)
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Blogged by Clark Goble