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Comments on Smedslund's “Revising explications of common sense through dialogue”
Author(s) -
SJÖBERG LENNART
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1983.tb00480.x
Subject(s) - common sense , psychology , meaning (existential) , term (time) , epistemology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics
Smedslund's attempt to show that common sense is invariant is discussed. It is pointed out that he used a new definition of common sense as well as instructions which maximize invariance. Therefore, the findings demonstrate merely that the subjects utilized well known folk psychological concepts in their inferences. They cannot be generalized to other, real‐life, situations and to the usual meaning of the term common sense. The use of dialogue to increase invariance may work in an artificial setting where little is at stake but may well increase and freeze differences of opinion in real‐life settings. Still, Smedslund should be given credit for initiating work at a conceptual level which is badly needed, as illustrated here with an example from work on intrinsic motivation.