Psychology vs Common Sense
To do justice to this paper one must first look at what the two schools of thought are.
The word psychology is the combination of two terms – study (ology) and soul (psyche), or mind. The derivation of the word from Latin gives it this clear and obvious meaning.
“Psyche” is defined as:
(A) The spirit or soul.
(B) The human mind
(C) In psychoanalysis, the mind functioning as the centre of thought, emotion, and behavior.
Defining “Soul”, we have:
1. The spiritual or immortal elements in a person.
2. A person’s mental, moral or emotional nature.
We can all agree that most of us if not all have a “psyche” when we look at the above definitions, in the sense of mind, thought, and emotions. Most would also agree that they have a soul, this relates to man’s moral, mental or emotional nature. Regardless of the different notions about what these ultimately are, few could hardly disagree they exist.
Psychology then is the scientific study of the human mind. (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus Second Edition, p. 671).
What is Common Sense?
Good Judgment, sound practical judgment derived from experience rather than study.
(MSN Encarta).
According to James (1890), “ Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions… The Phenomena are such things as we call feelings, desires, cognition, reasoning, decisions and the like” (p. 2). Data is collected through careful, systematic observation; then attempt to explain what was observed by developing theories; make new predictions based on those theories and then systematically test those predictions through additional observations and experiments to determine whether it is correct. Where as common sense describes beliefs or propositions that seem, to most people, to be prudent and of sound judgment, without dependence upon esoteric knowledge (cited from www.wikipedia.org). Basically the above statement shows that it must be kept in mind that common sense is based upon casual
The word psychology is the combination of two terms – study (ology) and soul (psyche), or mind. The derivation of the word from Latin gives it this clear and obvious meaning.
“Psyche” is defined as:
(A) The spirit or soul.
(B) The human mind
(C) In psychoanalysis, the mind functioning as the centre of thought, emotion, and behavior.
Defining “Soul”, we have:
1. The spiritual or immortal elements in a person.
2. A person’s mental, moral or emotional nature.
We can all agree that most of us if not all have a “psyche” when we look at the above definitions, in the sense of mind, thought, and emotions. Most would also agree that they have a soul, this relates to man’s moral, mental or emotional nature. Regardless of the different notions about what these ultimately are, few could hardly disagree they exist.
Psychology then is the scientific study of the human mind. (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus Second Edition, p. 671).
What is Common Sense?
Good Judgment, sound practical judgment derived from experience rather than study.
(MSN Encarta).
According to James (1890), “ Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and of their conditions… The Phenomena are such things as we call feelings, desires, cognition, reasoning, decisions and the like” (p. 2). Data is collected through careful, systematic observation; then attempt to explain what was observed by developing theories; make new predictions based on those theories and then systematically test those predictions through additional observations and experiments to determine whether it is correct. Where as common sense describes beliefs or propositions that seem, to most people, to be prudent and of sound judgment, without dependence upon esoteric knowledge (cited from www.wikipedia.org). Basically the above statement shows that it must be kept in mind that common sense is based upon casual