Can obvious ‘workings of the mind’ be also said to be commonsense? That is, when someone says words of encouragement and inspiration to you, you become positive in outlook. Upon winning, sometime later, you automatically reflect back on the hardships you had to go through to reach where you have. Or something simpler – upon completion of an eventful journey you look back upon it.
These are Psychological tendencies – can they be considered to be a part of our ‘commonsense’? Does someone have to teach them to us? No. They come naturally, with age and development. But is this “development”, somehow the very learning of these processes? I don’t know.
Note – these aren’t inferences one draws, they are mere “neutral” and general reflections/introspections. Does someone need to teach us to self-reflect/self-introspect? Or is it purely a matter of mental maturity which comes with age? Because, as a matter of fact, even a little kid introspects – but those are simple logical inferences it draws when it feels “that means I am no good, I am poor” upon failing in an exam in school. But the encouraging words making us positive or the recalling of the hardships upon winning aren’t quite inferences, in format.
Here is one technical dispassionate Psychological principle I see – ‘At time of reflections, upon happening of significant events in life, we delve into the past or future’ – past, to relate it to the present situation – causes in the past that led to it / signs in the past having coming out to be true through that event / comparing how you felt then and are feeling now etc.…. & future, for the consequences of that significant event on the long-range plans.
Can such conversions of principles of Psychology into technicalities which are – simple and obvious, common to all, and which involve adequate purposes (like why delve into the past?, why into the future?, as in the above case) for our reactions to situations, be called Commonsense the way we use the word Commonsense as a trait of our intelligence?
To put this in a slightly different way – when we say that to know that parents love their children is commonsense, is it commonsense for the parent to love its child i.e. can that Psychological tendency be also called commonsense? Or when we say that stealing a string might make its owner angry, is the tendency of the owner becoming angry upon his string being stolen, also “commonsense” on his part?
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