Is sociology common sense? Give reasons in support of your argument. (UPSC CSE Mains 2016 - Sociology, Paper 1)
Sociology draws a great deal from commonsense as the former touches the everyday experiences of lay persons. As a result there is a tendency to use one in place of the other. Sociological knowledge tends to be general, if not universal, on the other hand commonsense knowledge is particular and localised.
- Commonsense is not only localised it is also unreflective since it does not question its own origin and presuppositions.
- Further, sociology also helps us to show that commonsense is highly variable. Sociology helps us to understand a society and this could be deepened and broadened by systematic comparison between one society with other whereas commonsense is not in a position to reach such an understanding. This becomes possible because sociology makes use of its tools and techniques for systematic investigation of the object while commonsense involves preconception, which is rejected by sociology.
- Commonsense easily constructs imaginary social arrangements which is utopian whereas sociology is anti utopian in its central preoccupation with the disjunction between ideal and reality in human societies.
- Sociology is also anti-fatalistic in its orientation. It does not accept the particular constraints taken for granted by commonsense as eternal or immutable. It provides a clearer awareness than commonsense of the range of alternatives that have been or may be devised for the attainment of broadly the same ends. Sociology is further value neutral and free of all forms of biases and value judgements but commonsense is often a source of biases and errors.
- Commonsense knowledge is the routine knowledge people have of their everyday world and activities. Different sociological approaches adopt different attitudes to commonsense knowledge. The concept is central to Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological sociology, where it refers to organized and typified stocks of taken for granted knowledge upon which actiivities are based and that in the natural attitude are not questioned. For ethnomethodologizts commonsense or tacit knowledge is a constant achievement in which people draw on implicit rules of how to carry on and which produce a sense of organisation and coherence. For symbolic interactionists and other interpretive sociologists there is a less rigorous analysis of commonsense knowledge, but the central aim of sociology is seen as explicating and elaborating people’s conceptions of the social world.
- However, some sociologists see commonsense knowledge as different from, if not opposed to, sociological understanding. For Durkheim sociology must break free of the prejudice of commonsense perceptions before it can produce scientific knowledge of the social world. For Marxists much commonsense knowledge is ideological or at least very limited in its understanding of the world. Therefore, to begin with we should see the difference between knowledge derived from commonsense and those having origin in sociological research and systematic methods.
Sociology is hence related to common sense in that both seek to understand human behavior and social phenomena. However, sociology goes beyond common sense by employing systematic research methods and theoretical frameworks to analyze social patterns and relationships. Sociologists often challenge common sense assumptions and reveal the underlying social structures and processes that shape human behavior, providing a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of society.
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