KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA100 (Smith)

Commentary 2

[ NOTE: This comment was made to an earlier version of TA100 ]

( COMMON SENSE )

by Stanley Krippner

3 December 2007, posted 22 December 2007

I have read your paper. You have hit some high notes, e.g., experimental effect on page 2 [6, 16, 82, 98], DNA and non-genetic information on page 3 [10, 23, 101, 111] (extremely controversial, of course), in utero experiences and their effect of behavior [23] (page 9), Lamarckian evolution [25] (same page), the three divergent strands of common sense [13, 14, 16, 19, 28] (page 10), separation of children from military mothers [30, 31, 32] (page 11) which I think is one of the most important contributions of this paper, the fact that unprotected sex during one night stands shows a LACK of common sense in the Age of AIDS [33, 34, 35] (page 12), the provocative notion about junk DNA [55] (page 17), the example [62] on page 18 is a good one but needs more context, the example [65] of page 19 in 1985 is excellent (you could easily collect data to show that math and reading skills go along with common sense), the vignettes [69] on page 21 show the cross-cultural aspects of common sense as does general anxiety disorder [73] on page 24, and the meta-transpersonal perspectives is a fresh slant [76-82] (page 25). Now what you need is an operational definition of common sense. [cf. 84, 89] To start, couldn't you say that "common sense" is the ability to make decisions (that are functional for the individual as well as for his/her social group) based on experience and past learning ? [cf. 89] I see common sense as a skill, an ability, and a learned behavior. Of course there are biological predispositions to it, as there are to all human abilities. But you have hit on an important topic and I hope you follow up on it !

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Stanley Krippner

e-mail <skrippner (at) saybrook.edu

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