The Foundations Of Common Sense: A Psychological Preface To The Problems Of Knowledge (the International Library Of Psychology Vol. 109) (volume 54)
by Isaacs Nathan /
1999 / English / PDF
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First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa companyFOREvVORD
by SIR CYRIL BURT
Mr. Nathan Isaacs is already known for his valuable contributions both to philosophy and (in association with the late Susan Isaacs) to child psychology. He himself needs no introduction but I should like to emphasise that, while his book is a profound and valuable contribution to philosophy, it is at the
same time based upon a sound psychology. Since modern psychology is a young and rapidly changing science, even the ablest of contemporary philosophers is apt to lapse into a naive or out-of- date type of psychology when he comes to deal with problems of mind or knowledge.
In his new book, Mr. Isaacs seeks to explain how we come to believe in our common sense world, and why, in spite of all philosophical criticism, we cannot help still believing in it. His aim is to show how we progressively build up the various constituents of that belief, and how those constituents tend to support
and reinforce one another in a single, well-consolidated structure.
Such an account must consist, not in a reasoned or deductive system ofepistemological principles or ofmetaphysical conclusions.
It is essentially a matter of describing, in accurate psychological language, our own states and experiences so far as they can be observed, and in particular the structural pattern which those states and experiences impose upon our tacit assumptions and llabitual perceptions. Here Mr. Isaacs brings the latest contributions of psychological understanding to bear upon time-honoured problems of philosophy.
He argues that a complete account of our experience-genetic, historical, and dynamic-must come before any attempt at philosophic argument or criticism. Otherwise the latter will have to work on unstable ideas or fragmentary data, and its results must therefore of necessity collapse as soon as they are examined.
Hitherto philosophers have claimed the central issues of knowledge as their own special preserve and psychologists, by accepting this claim, have unwittingly helped to maintain the sterile position thus adopted. Bllt a bold and comprehensive psychological description of the whole phenomena in question can contribute something which neither the epistemologist nor the metaphysician can possibly ignore.
Mr. Isaacs' essay should therefore be of the greatest t and value to students of philosophy and psychology alike, and to those members of the general public who may have felt shaken or disturbed by the current philosophic criticisms ofour common notions of truth and reality as we use them in ordinary everyday life.
