Weber defines common sense as routine knowledge that people have of their everyday world and activities. It may be based on observations and experiences, or on ignorance, prejudice, and mistaken interpretation. Sociology attempts to understand social phenomena using empiricism, objectivity, and verificationism, and builds cause-effect relationships.
Common sense is unreflective and does not question its own origins. While, as Berger puts it, common sense is superficial. It fails to recognize that behavior patterns are not biologically determined but rather reflect social conventions and culture, learned through socialization, and gives no importance to the wider social forces that act on an individual.
Example: A naturalistic explanation of poverty - people are poor because they are afraid of work. A contemporary understanding of poverty is that it is caused by the structure of inequality in class society and is experienced by those who suffer from chronic irregularity of work and low wages.
Common sense is sometimes paradoxical - "opposites attract" and "birds of the same feather flock together" are both common idioms.
In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture and propagates its own values and norms so that they become the "common sense" values of all, thus maintaining the status quo.
The common-sense view of differences in behavior between men and women assumes biological and physiological differences as the reason behind them. However, Mead's study of New Guinea revealed contradictions in such behavior among the tribes of New Guinea.
To the Hopi Indians, rain clouds are Gods who must be made happy by exhibiting Rain dance is common sense. Thus, common sense can be culturally specific.
Common sense observation is further compounded by a deeply held commitment to the idea that we are all individuals, unique beings with our own special qualities, which sociologists deny. Sociology insists on a willingness to reject what is obvious common-sense, natural, and to go beneath the surface for understanding of the world. As Berger puts it: “The fascination of Sociology lies in the fact that its perspective makes us see in a new light the very world in which we have lived all our lives. It can be said that the first wisdom of Sociology is that things are not what they seem”. Sociologists emphasize that what is ‘common sense’ or ‘natural’ may be by no means universal or eternal but is frequently relative to particular societies or particular periods in time.
Mead’s study of New Guinea, ‘Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies’, revealed the partiality of such common-sense interpretations of behavior pattern. Among the Apache, she found very few ‘natural differences’ in men’s and women’s behavior with neither sex exhibiting aggression: Women did the heavy carrying, Men stayed at home with their wives during and after childbirth, ‘sharing’ the pain and strain. Among the Munduracco, both sexes were aggressive, children were treated brutally by both parents, and lovemaking was rather like a pitched battle. Among the Tchambuli, yet further variation occurred: men adorned themselves, gossiped, made things for trade, while women selected their partners, made the sexual advances, did all the trade, and were the more aggressive sex. Obviously, we cannot explain these very striking variations in behavior via biology, since the people in the various societies were all the same biologically.
A naturalistic explanation of behavior rests on the assumptions that one can readily identify ‘natural’ (or sometimes ‘God-given’) reasons for behavior. For example, it is only natural, that two people should fall in love, get married, live together, and raise a family. Such explanations are rejected as inadequate by the sociologist. The individualistic explanation is rejected because it does not recognize the importance of wider social forces acting on the individual that he or she cannot control. The naturalistic explanation is rejected because it fails to recognize that behavior patterns are not primarily biologically determined but rather reflect social conventions learned by individuals as members of social groups or, more generally, society.
Sociology thus breaks away from both common sense observations and ideas as well as from philosophical thought. It does not always or even generally lead to spectacular results. But meaningful and unsuspected connections can be reached only by sitting through masses of connections.
Great advances in sociological knowledge have been made, generally incrementally and only rarely by a dramatic breakthrough. Sociology has a body of concepts, methods, and data, no matter how loosely coordinated. This cannot be substituted by common sense.
Common sense is unreflective since it does not question its own origins. Or in other words, it does not ask itself: “Why do I hold this view?” The sociologist must be ready to ask of any of our beliefs, about ourselves - no matter how cherished - “is this really so?” The systematic and questioning approach of sociology is derived from a broader tradition of scientific investigation. This emphasis on scientific procedures can be understood only if we go back in time. And understand the context or social situation with which the sociological perspective merged as sociology was greatly influenced by the great developments in modern science.
Thus, a statement made on a common sense basis may be just a guess, a hunch, or a haphazard way of saying something, generally based on ignorance, bias, prejudice, or mistaken interpretation, though occasionally it may be wise, true, and a useful bit of knowledge. At one time, common sense statements might have preserved folk wisdom but today, scientific method has become a common way of seeking truths about our social world.
Sociology has a special and irreverent attitude towards social life. Peter L Berger has called it a "debunking attitude towards the world taken for granted." Durkheim said, "Common sense perceptions are prejudices which can mar the scientific study of the social world." Alfred Schutz organized typified stocks of taken-for-granted knowledge and generally not questioned. Garfinkel argued that common sense produces a sense of organization and coherence because people draw on implicit rules of how to carry on CSK through socialization, individual experience, others' experience.
Three dimensions of culture have been distinguished:
Takes cue from what appears on the surface | looks for interconnections and root causes Conjectures and stereotypical beliefs | reason and logic Assumptions | evidence Individualistic and naturalistic | empirical testing and research Intuitive | objective Particularistic | generalist, theory-building Status quoist | change-oriented Unreflective | unending debates and discourse Value-laden | objective and scientific Enforced through tradition | skeptic society created man? Sociology has a s man created society or example: Durkheim and Marx towards religion Sociology approaches social life with the help of definite methods