Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 148
“Common sense is the very antipodes of science.”
Edward B. Titchener, Systematic Psychology: Prolegomena (1972), p. 48
“Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense…”
The Fabric of Reality (1997)
The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)
Context: There is, however, a much more convincing argument that needs to be put on the table before we really begin turning common sense upside down. It is the overwhelming reason to prefer science to ordinary beliefs, common sense, and direct experience. Science is just common sense continually improving itself, rebuilding itself, until it is no longer recognizable as common sense. It is easy to miss this fact about science without studying a lot of history of science—and not the stories about science, but the succession of actual scientific theories and how common sense was both their mother and their midwife.
Gottlob Frege (1950 [1884]). The Foundations of Arithmetic. p. 99.
“They’re so dedicated to logic and reason that common sense hasn’t got much to do with it.”
A Million Open Doors (1992)
“Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants.”
Source: Sir William Osler : Aphorisms (1961), p. 134.
“Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Context: Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad.
