Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: Common Sense - Grammatik, Ichbezogenheit

Kurzinhalt: Again, common sense is egocentric. It is not concerned with the general question of how anyone is to behave, but with how I am to behave

Textausschnitt: 53/3 Again, common sense is egocentric. It is not concerned with the general question of how anyone is to behave, but with how I am to behave; not with' what anyone is to say, but with what I am to say; not with what is to be done by so and so, but with what I am to do and how I am to do it. It is like grammar. In grammar, place is always relative to my place -'here' is my 'here' - and time is always relative to my time - I 'am,' and what is not at the same time 'was' or 'will be.' Persons, too, are relative to the first person. What is the second person? Not myself but the one I am talking to. And what is the third person? Somebody else. Common sense is egocentric in the same fashion. (72f; Fs)

54/3 Finally, common sense is the mode of all concrete understanding and judgment. When you get really down to the concrete, you are in the situation, and the situation is before you, and to deal with the situation you do not want some universal science; and in fact complete analysis is impossible and undesirable.1 You want to make the ultimate adjustments to the concrete, beyond the generalities of science. In a way, common sense is prelogical. Lévy-Bruhl, the French sociologist, introduced the term 'prelogical' in describing primitives.2 I do not wish to use the term in that sense, but rather to mean that common sense does not use terms, propositions, and syllogisms as a technique for the clarification and development of intelligence.3 It proceeds in a much more direct fashion. The Greek discovery of the logos was the discovery of language, and consequently of concepts and judgments, and attention was drawn to the words, to the propositions, to the arguments, as a means, a tool, to make intelligence more complete and more adequate. (73; Fs)





53/3 Again, common sense is egocentric. It is not concerned with the general question of how anyone is to behave, but with how I am to behave; not with' what anyone is to say, but with what I am to say; not with what is to be done by so and so, but with what I am to do and how I am to do it. It is like grammar. In grammar, place is always relative to my place -'here' is my 'here' - and time is always relative to my time - I 'am,' and what is not at the same time 'was' or 'will be.' Persons, too, are relative to the first person. What is the second person? Not myself but the one I am talking to. And what is the third person? Somebody else. Common sense is egocentric in the same fashion. (72f; Fs)