This document discusses common sense from philosophical and scientific perspectives. Philosophically, Plato saw common sense as an intuitive aspect of knowing, while modern thinkers like Descartes questioned intuitive certainty. Scientifically, Aristotle viewed science as moving from sensory experiences to general principles, while later scientists like Galileo and Newton took a more mechanistic view. In management theory, thinkers like Barnard, Simon, and Patton advocate balancing analysis and intuition, or common sense, in decision making. While common sense can hinder innovative thinking, it remains an important element in management if understood as basic intuitive truths and principles.

1. COMMON SENSE IN PHILOSOPHICAL
AND SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

2. What is Common Is common
sense taught
sense? in school?
Is common sense
is really “common
to all people”?
Does common
sense varies in
every individual?

3. Common Sense
Philosophical Scientific
Modern Management Theory

4. PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE
PLATO.
 he distance philosophers from the common people, and
to differentiate true scientific knowledge (epistêmê) from
the misguided and murky opinion (doxa) of the multitude

5. At the same time, however, he advanced the notion that
knowledge of absolute truths is in some sense innate,
although requiring dialectical reasoning to be brought to
light – there is thus an intuitive aspect to knowing.
“Intuitive aspect to knowing” can be “Common Sense”

6. Herbert of Cherbury & Rene Descartes – a new
traditon of philosophical thinking emerged in the
early modern period that began to assess the role
played by “first principles” of common sense in our
intellectual and social life.

7. SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
Aristotle
 Science for Aristotle was an activity of moving from
the “givens” of sense of experience, through
inductive observations of particulars, to the general
causal connections that bind everything together into
one system of nature.

8. Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Newton and Bacon
Modern science was founded in part on a
distrust of ordinary sense experience and
“appearances” in favor of corpuscular, idealized and
mathematical truths. The world of everyday exp.
needed to be re examined, tested, transcended, put
on the rack and reduced to invisible forces and
minute particles in order to be understood.

9. Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume
An entirely mechanistic view of human nature (we are
simply machines that can think) and the world
(everything is composed of matter in motion) began to
be developed, while our ability to know that world with
any kind of intuitive certainty was also under attack by
the rising current of modern skepticism.

10. JOHN LOCKE
Argue that there are no innate moral
rules or principles, since customs varied
widely among people and “have remorse
in one place for doing or omitting that
which other,. in other place. Locke
emphasize on the diversity of moral
beliefs, and his efforts to disprove the
existence of innate moral ideas or
principles implanted by God

11. Thomas Reid – 1770-96A
Scottish Philosopher
“All reasoning must be grounded on first principles.
This holds in moral reasoning, as in all other kinds.
There must be therefore be in morals, as in all other
sciences, first or self evident principles, on which all
moral reasoning is grounded, an on which it ultimately
rests. ”

12. Reid carefully investigated the five
senses, concluding that in their
basic functions they give to the
world to us.

13. According to Thomas Reid:
“Natural Signs”- it is filled CAUSALITY- a crucial
and we are equipped by principle, the intuitive conviction
nature to Read initially that observed events are often
casually connected.
“”Original Perceptions”-
existence and primary
qualities of bodies
“Inductive principle”-
science and common life,.
“Acquired Perceptions”-
laws of nature
Natural Language- “Moral principles”- “moral sense,
gestures and facial moral intuitions”. The sense of
expressions right and wrong in conduct
personal intention, responsibility,
“Principles of Common
duty, honesty, justice and moral
Sense”- original and natural
obligation.
perception

14. COMMON SENSE AND MANAGEMENT
THEORY

15. CHESTER BARNARD (1938)
Rationality is the habit of
acting by reason, which
means in accordance Rationality
with the facts of reality.
Good
Managerial
Decision
Intuition is the ability to
acquire knowledge
Making
without inference (act or Intuition
process
of deriving logical
conclusions) and/or the
use of reason.

17. Manager Manager Manager
without without with both
rationality
intuition rationalit and
y Intuition

18. SIMON (1987)
 Argued that managers draw on both
analysis and intuition in responding
quickly to problems and situations: ―It
is a fallacy to contrast analytic’ and
intuitive’ styles of management.

19. SIMON (1987)
In order to
respond quickly
to
circumstances,
managers need
to cultivate
intuition and
judgment over
many years of
Managerial Decision Making training and
experience.

20. BENNETT (1998)
 He notes that there is widespread
agreement among researchers that both
analytical and intuitive processing are
necessary components of the decision-
making process, and that intuitive leaps are
often part of a successful decision.

21. PATTON (2003)
 similarly advocates a balance between intuition and
logic in decision-making, intuition understood as
pattern recognition based on experience and
learning that is especially useful in complex
situations that require instantaneous actions or
behaviors.
 This understanding of intuition is very close to what
normally gets referred to in the management
literature as common sense, and the two are at
times explicitly linked

22. NITECKI (1987)
 Similarly sees common sense as a potential
hindrance to sound managerial thinking and
problem-solving.
 He conflates (combine) the two basic
understandings of common sense (intuitive
principles of mind vs. common
understandings), and critiques it for being the fount
(source) of conventional wisdom and the status quo
(Current situation).

24. Managers fails because:
1. Incorrectly identifying solutions to
problems
2. Unable to effectively plan organize.
Shows up as getting bogged down with
details so that overall planning or
organizing isn’t done
3. Inflexibility. Will not listen to others. Is
completely self-centered
4. Failing to think in terms of the entire
organizational situation. Doesn’t see the
bigger picture. Shows up as being
unwilling to cooperate with other
departments or managers.

25.  if we understand common sense as basic truths or
principles intuitively perceived by the mind (whether
ingrained via experience or implanted by nature), there
continues to be much interest in it as an important
element in management theory, practice, and
organizational learning
 once we clarify just what we mean by common sense,
and deepen our understanding of its intuitive and
―hard-wired‖ dimensions, it becomes easier to assess
both the positive role and limitations of common sense
in managerial decision-making.

26. Prepared by:
 Ambos, Joge christipher
 Lapeña, Eleanor d.
 Rivera, Ariel Reginald S.
 Sadangsal, Kristine Joy V
References:
 Common Sense in Philosophical and Scientific
Perspective
http://www.cnu.edu/leadershipstudies/faculty/Red
ekop_Common_Sense_Author_Preprint.pdf
.