4 COMMON SENSE (aND SCIENCE ) 



Novelty of viewpoint is a work of imagination. And, to be sure, 

 imagination is valued in both artists and scientists. Proust suggests 

 the artist charms us by teaching us to see another universe; the sci- 

 entist charms us similarly, by showing us a conceptual order in the 

 chaos of perceptual experience. But, through this same concern for 

 rational unity, the scientist is borne on toward the viewpoint of the 

 philosopher. "Philosophy has often been defined," says James, "as 

 the quest or the vision of the world's unity." The theologian may con- 

 ceive this unity very diflPerently, and use very different criteria in 

 judging the extent to which it has been achieved. But he believes as 

 firmly as the philosopher or the scientist in the unity of the world. 

 The biologist W. R. Thompson, the chemist Conant, and the 

 mathematicians Clifford and Bronowski have all written works with 

 titles juxtaposing science and common sense. Science has, indeed, 

 been defined (by T. H. Huxley) as "organized common sense." In the 

 present age of relativistic and quantum physics many, including both 

 scientists and laymen, find outrageous all comparison of science with 

 common sense. To them science seems flatly to contradict common 

 sense wherever it does not wholly ignore it. Yet consider the testimony 

 of an eminent theoretical physicist of our own age: Oppenheimer 

 urges that we 



. . . distrust all the philosophers who claim that by examining sci- 

 ence they come to results in contradiction with common sense. Science 

 is based on common sense; it cannot contradict it. 



Though between science and common sense there exist dissimilarities 

 we must not ( and will not ) overlook, the strong similarities between 

 them establish for us a point of departure. Seeking to understand 

 science, we begin by trying to understand the nature of common 

 sense. Thus proceeding, we simply follow the counsel of Einstein, the 

 subtle theoretician whose views have been widely regarded as a com- 

 plete repudiation of common sense. 



The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of every- 

 day thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the 

 physicist cannot possibly be restricted to the examination of the con- 

 cepts of his own specific field. He cannot proceed without consider- 

 ing critically a much more difficult problem, the problem of analyz- 

 ing the nature of everyday thinking. 



