SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON SENSE

 

SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON SENSE

 

The study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human conduct is known as sociology. Sociologists study the structure of groups, organizations, and communities, as well as how people interact within them. Because all human activity is social, the subject matter of sociology extends from the close family to the hostile mob; from organized crime to religious traditions; from racial, gender, and social class differences to shared cultural ideas. As we all are part of society, we have some understanding of social institutions and social behaviour.

There is a possibility that sociological knowledge will be confounded with common sense knowledge.

COMMON SENSE

Routine awareness of our daily concerns yields common sense knowledge.

Common sense explanations are typically based on naturalistic and/or individualistic explanations.

A naturalistic explanation for behavior is based on the premise that natural reasons for behavior may be identified.

The word "common sense" refers to all  the numerous perspectives that individuals come to not via critical inquiry but as already existent, self-evident truths.

COMMON SENSE MEANING AND PRACTICE

ü  Common Sense is described as people's ordinary understanding of their everyday surroundings and activities, and it is often based on naturalistic or individualist explanations.

ü  It is assumed to be common knowledge.

ü  It is unverified.

ü  Common Sense aids sociologist in hypothesis development.

ü  It supplies raw material for social research.

ü  In sociology, considerations are constructed by taking commonsensical information into account.

ü  •Common sense was abandoned as sociology drew closer to Positivism. Common sense was valued by anti-positivists. 

 

The common sense worlds consists of an implicit and explicit dimension each of which compliment each other.

THE IMPLICIT DIMENSION OF COMMON SENSE

The implicit dimension involves the simplicity and transparency –the feeling of obviousness and necessity which the wrold imposes (Bourdieu) For example Go to sleep early you will feel fresh in the morning.

Common sense is taken for granted. It is very practical. Not very complicated.

THE EXPLICIT DIMENSION OF COMMON SENSE

The explicit dimension comprises the public act of naming the world, legitimate naming as the official, imposition of the legitimate view of the social reality, which has all the collective might on its side. It is a collective public legitimation - the formal imposition of a legitimate vision of the social reality.  

No matter how loosely organized, sociology has a collection of concepts, techniques, and data.

Common sense cannot replace this; common sense is unreflective since it does not investigate its own roots.

Sociological knowledge strives to be general, if not universal, whereas common sense information is specific and regional, such as industrialisation and its influence on the family structure.

ROLE OF SOCIOLOGY IN COMMON SENSE

Different sociologist have different opinion on the role of common sense in the study of society.

POSITIVISM: An approach to sociology that emphasises that sociological inquiry should be based on data and empirical evidences, stresses on objective and value neutral sociology.

NON POSITIVISM

INTERPRETIVISM: social reality is subjective and aim of sociology should be to explain meaning attached to the social action. (Max Weber)

PHENOMENOLOGY: In essence, it aims to show the role of human awareness in the development of social action, situations in society, and social worlds. The concept that society is a human construction is known as phenomenology. Alfred Schutz

Early positivist sociologists were concerned that common sense was insufficient to get the knowledge they desired, and that they needed to create new methods of inquiry and analysis to achieve their goal.  

In fact, they saw common sense as a barrier to examining and analyzing existing evidence.They completely discounted the role of common sense in any sociological inquiry. e.g. Emile Durkheim’s concept of Social Fact in his study of suicide. What was considered a mental phenomenon had social factors behind it.

Interpretive sociologists like Dilthey, Max Weber and symbolic interactionists like G.H.Mead and C.H. Cooley use common sense knowledge to some extent.

The concept of common sense knowledge is central to Phenomenological approach (Alfred Schutz), Ethnomethodological approach (Harold Garfinkel).

Common sense knowledge also forms the basis of Peter Berger & Luckman’s general theory of society in the book Social Construction of Reality.

DIFFICULTY TO APPLY COMMON SENSE IN SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY

Everyday common sense converges easily with social conceptions.

The Talcott Parsons model of the family predicted that women would play expressive roles and men would play instrumental duties. Feminist academics claim that this is akin to present patriarchal common sense.

CONCLUSION

The uneasy relationship between sociology and common sense has been addressed to a large extent in Andre Beteille’s contention.

that nothing would be gained by abandoning either common sense or the cultivation of technical skills (use of scientific methods).

Sociology does not confine itself to a body of facts delimited by space and time.

It deals with both arguments and facts, the connections between which appear loose and open.

Therefore sociology has to steer an uneasy course between two equally unfruitful alternatives of submergence in the common sense of the scholars’s environment and pursuing technical virtuosity at times unconnected with the substance to social enquiry as an en in itself.