HC v CCS

We've been talking for almost a year now about the difference between the conventional thread of HC philosophy (rigorous arguments working systematically toward rhetorical "brilliance") versus commonsense as we have defined it.

It occurs to me, as it has previously, that in order to understand the difference one must put HC and CCS in separate packages.

Let me get right to it: When most thinkers attempting this (see Moore or Russell) they have a tendency to view their outline or assumptions about commonsense through the lens of HC. This is not the right way to do it and most likely the reason commonsense comes less digestible and memorable.

So what is this pivotal point on which HC relies (and is built)? Russell brings it up in PIP when he claims that ultimately all truth comes from a foundation and the only one not relativized, to him, is intuition. We can assume with Hume that this foundation did not exist; he was unable to find a foundation, or a fulcrum on which absolute knowledge can rely. To claim that our personal identity as a concept is not absolute seems to land him there. Perpetual skepticism. This is about what Hume lamented in his appendix to the treatise (his own self-doubt?).

HC as we know it from Kant is more complex than Hume. Kant intended it to be this way in response to Hume. The pivotal point is a systematic rational argument. It is interesting however that where Kant started is not (arguably) where he ended up. At the outset this HC thread and system begins with something akin to a Cartesian argument. Build up indisputable rational proof and then pile on the systematic and "inevitable" truths to obtain knowledge. But it ends up at a transcendental method that some have described as more like "intuition" and, in some cases, more like Reid and CCS (see "The Commonsense Kant, cit coming).

If you talk to a philosopher today you will at least discover two things. 1. that he expects absolutely rational and evidenced arguments built within a systematic process to obtain convincing truth. This (as Reid lamented) is done from an armchair, is done from the "spinning" of ideas from one man's mind. This was often a white male inside the HC system. Russell was a perfect example and it is no surprise that he writes things, and I paraphrase, like: external reality most likely exists but we cannot be sure.

This is the best you will get from HC to help you understand CCS.

The second thing you can expect from most philosophers in the past three hundred years other than the expectations of systematizing is the view that HC is singular as an approach. It may be opposed to Eastern styles, but is not in competition with CCS. CCS has not been recovered fairly from Reid. Mill for one chastised the Wise Club and Reid for making Hume's arguments too simple and then criticizing them from that point (a strawman). He did not consider that Reid's system required a different foundation.

So, if one steps outside the hyper-rational systematizing of post-Kantian philosophy where are we in relation to Reid?

We are in a new world that is (as Reid himself would suggest) older and more basic than HC. HC has specific built-in expectations for truth and "good" arguments. CCS is based on stoic theories akin to, but not limited to, built-in knowledge, intuition, and immediate awareness. The fact, for example, that we know when we are dreaming and not dreaming is a great example of this immediacy and primacy of knowing. Stepping outside our current history, remember, Reid insisted that when we think we're awake and we are not awake, that this is merely a mistake. There are reasons for this mistake. When a sane man is pressed to claim waking life versus dreaming life he is absolutely certain of the status. Not all men are sane and those numbers may be increasing daily. But the fact remains that without error, which is to say in reality, a sane man CAN tell the difference. How does he do this? For Reid the truth is immediate and not debatable. There are no further systematic arguments to be made that might enlighten one or others to the status. I know that I am awake when in fact I am awake. It is a built-in part of our mind to know the difference.

This argument may seem trite. And that is fine. What we see here is an easy testament to the expectation difference between HC and CCS. We may claim here that the dream argument is too simple (as Mill said of Reid's critique of Hume) and even without a strawman error (which is to say we properly uncover Reid's point) the reaching out of HC gets us to a point of clarity. This is a point Reid and man Scottish people arrived at in 1760. The common man has absolute immediate awareness of very basic things like dreaming, space, and time (to name a few) and this awareness does a better job of explaining our real life (as opposed to our hyper-rational, laboratory, armchair life).

Russell to his credit admits this (in PIP) and yet cannot conclude the CCS point that knowledge can be absolute and that external reality can be universally accepted, etc, because he did not step outside of HC.

The point here (right now) is merely that there are two systems. One has been dominant (HC) and one has been lost (CCS). For further reading, again, I recommend "The Hidden Roots of Critical Psychology," by Michael Billig.

The below extract shows a modern attempt (though I do not like it) to do in fact what I am outlining; to draw a distinction between the two truth outcomes:

"Kant on Common Sense and Scepticism"

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011"

"What Kant goes on to propose is that, instead of focusing on trying to establish with certainty – against skepticism – that the objects of common sense exist, let alone that they have philosophical dominance, or, in contrast, on explaining that it is only the theoretical discoveries of science that determine what is objective, one can rather work primarily to determine a positive and balanced philosophical relation between the distinct frameworks of our manifest and scientific images."

* the word "manifest:" to show plainly.