Commonsense Notions Research Articles

Redescribing Jesus’ Divinity through a Social Science Theory: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Forgiveness and Divine Identity in Ancient Judaism and Mark 2:1–12

Studies of divine identity theory applied to Jesus in the NT have been steadily increasing. A welcome addition to this trajectory is Beniamin Pascut’s recent Cambridge Ph.D. thesis supervised by Simon Gathercole. Pascut surveys three main theories of identity, opting for the most all-encompassing: a “communication theory” that posits personal, enactment, relational, and communal dimensions. These four analyze, respectively, what differentiates a person from others, the actions and communications that disclose who they are, what their relationships with others reveal, and what groups of people they identify with.Pascut then studies the disclosure of Yahweh’s divine identity in ancient Judaism and the depiction of Jesus’s divine identity in Mark. Chapters follow on the nature of forgiveness and who can actually forgive and on the relationship between forgiveness and divine identity in Judaism. Finally, Pascut considers various texts that have been alleged to show people other than God enacting his forgiveness for people and engages in a careful exegesis of Mark 2:1–12 with all this background in view.Yahweh’s personal identity appears in his divine name and his attributes, especially as disclosed in Exod 34:6–7. He reveals his enactment identity in his creation, protection, redemption, and judgment. His relational identity comes from bringing people, especially the Israelites, to himself, for whom he is king, husband, father, and God, while his communal identity concentrates on electing the nation of Israel as a unique people.Mark, in turn, demonstrates Jesus’s divine identity personally when he equates Jesus with the Lord who is coming (Isa 40:3; Mark 1:3), the demons recognize him as “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), he knows people’s thoughts (2:6–8), and he is uniquely good (10:17–22); in the enactment layer with the enduring nature of his word (13:30–31), the miracles of the healed leper, stilling the storm, and feeding the multitudes (given their OT background of things only Yahweh can do); and relationally, as both the son of Mary and son of God but also doing what only Israel’s God does as his people’s bridegroom, Lord of the Sabbath, and the one who chooses a new Israel. Communally, he identifies with humanity, Israel, and his followers but also with uniquely supernatural beings, including God and angels.Space forbids even listing the evidence for the main points Pascut makes in the subsections of his remaining chapters. But he develops with some sociological and philosophical sophistication the common-sense notion than only person A (and not a third party, C) can forgive person B of offenses B has committed against A. Of course, other individuals can announce divine forgiveness, but no one else can enact it. Speech-act theory helps here, too, as one recasts the situation in perfomative terms. Various texts in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism that might appear to illustrate others enacting divine forgiveness turn out not to indicate that at all. The “angel of the Lord” bestows God’s forgiveness but only because he shares divine identity, representing God anthropomorphically.When Pascut at last turns to Mark 2, he is poised to stress that the passive voice, “your sins have been forgiven” (v. 5), is a divine performative (in keeping with numerous other passives in Mark); that the accusation of blasphemy (v. 7), as at Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin (14:64), makes sense only if he has transgressed a boundary between the human and the divine; that the authority to heal is what is called harder (compared with the authority to enact divine forgiveness—v. 9); and that the crowd’s amazement (v. 12) matches that in other Markan episodes of Jesus’s working uniquely divine feats (raising Jairus’s daughter and walking on water).While a few of the book’s sections seem to make the obvious unnecessarily complicated, a major contribution remains its survey of biblical and extrabiblical passages other than Mark 2 that stress that only someone with divine identity can enact God’s forgiveness and that Mark’s Jesus consistently displays divine identity. Pascut’s work now helpfully supplements Richard Bauckham’s, David Capes’s, and Andrew Loke’s on divine identity Christology.

Challenges to Groups as Epistemic Communities: Liminality of Common Sense and Increasing Variability of Word Meanings

The ‘epistemic calculus of groups’ posits functions to group-generated knowledge. In this article, those same epistemic group functions are now re-evaluated as means by which group members may tackle two contemporary and increasing challenges, or even obstructions, to knowledge. These obstructions, namely the liminality, the increasingly transitional nature of both ‘common sense’ and ‘common word meanings,’ occur, as our mass and social media practices change. Can groups still remain as ‘epistemic communities’ and regenerate common sense or common word meanings? As a response to media developments and to counterarguments by the analytic social epistemologists, I reconceptualize the functions of the ´epistemic calculus of groups´ as skills, and present a synthetic approach toward thinking in small groups to enable the regeneration of common meanings. As a basis in the analysis of the notions of common sense and common word meanings, I use the theory of psychologic: a theory built on formal logic. Finally, group functions that help to tackle the challenges related to common sense and word meanings are summarized.

Common Sense, Language, and Semantic Primes: Liminal or Constant Concepts of Psychology?

Common sense, language, and semantic primes are linguistic and psychological elements that enable people to speak and to understand each other with ease. Ease and fluidity of interaction do not, however, arise on their own. On the contrary, if we lose common sense, commonly shared language and even some primitive basic components of language, such as semantic primes, we face disorderliness, chaos, and misunderstandings in small and large group interactions. Such a dystopian scenario sounds extreme, but this article presents an argument that we now witness increasing decay of both “common sense” and “common word meanings,” as our mass and social media practices change. Without the cultural psychological key notions of common sense and common word meanings, the necessary psychic unity decreases, as Jan Smedslund’s (1988) psychologic posits. I propose as an antidote to the observable disorderliness and the loss of “common meaning” a critical analysis of these core concepts and an increased effort to regenerate common meanings. While the media “narrow-cast” meanings to small groups of like-minded individuals, such like-mindedness is also at the heart of the process of making something “common,” in any sense. Thus, if we become good at reflecting and understanding fundamental semantic primes and basic psychological axioms of our language, we are also better equipped to consider unfamiliar word meanings with flexibility. This would enable new meanings in the social regulation of common language and interaction between people who otherwise “talk past one another.”

Some thoughts on lexemes, the dome, and inner speech

Sydney Lamb’s model focuses our attention on the physicality of language, of the signs themselves as objects in the external world and the neural systems the support them. By means of the metaphor of a cognitive dome, he demonstrates that there is no firm line between linguistic and cognitive structure. In this context, I offer physically grounded accounts of Jakobson’s metalingual and emotive functions. Drawing on Vygotsky’s account of language development, I point out that inner speech, corresponding to the common sense notion of thought, originates in a circuit that goes through the external world and is then internalized.

The construction of class consciousness

Our contemporary common-sense notions about the world - hegemony - are constructed through a project of the capitalist class. Only a similar counter-project from working-class forces can construct a new class consciousness.

Expansionism, Extremism, and Exceptionalism in Life

AbstractThis article explores how taking physical cosmology and the entities that populate its fringes on their own terms might prompt anthropology to rethink what and how it thinks of life. Physical cosmologists work with inanimate matter that lies at the frontier of existential possibility, positing scales and concepts that seem to negate commonsense notions of life and nonlife. Although a common reaction in anthropology when faced with such infinite, nonhuman, and abstract landscapes is to try to crowbar “everyday life” back in, we argue that conceptual space needs to be made for another style of engagement between anthropology and physical cosmology. Taking the Boltzmann Brain as an example of life not only beyond the human but also beyond life as we know it, we start to flesh out a different sort of speculative, transdisciplinary endeavor.

Roger Scruton’s On Human Nature and the Starting Point of Science

This essay examines Roger Scruton’s On Human Nature in relation to the tension between modern science and the ordinary experience science aims to explain. Scruton regards the person as emerging from biological realities and tries to defend the integrity of common sense notions of human distinctiveness against reductive interpretations of evolutionary biology.

Forced (Queer) migration and everyday violence: The geographies of life, death, and access in Cape Town

LGBT+ rights have recently gained international attention across the continent and have resulted in expanding tensions surrounding access to both city and state in South Africa. The experiences of LGBT+ asylum seekers, an underexamined group of migrants in South Africa, adds further complexity to the literature that has already challenged common-sense notions of Cape Town as a safe haven for sexual minorities. Increasing xenophobic tensions in South Africa’s major urban centres combined with neoliberal-led cut-backs at municipal and national levels has further hidden and made invisible the struggles of LGBT+ asylum seekers. Accessing shelter and employment are interrelated facets of the right to the city as these aspects determine whether forcibly displaced queer people are allowed to live or are simply abandoned and left to die. Thus, this article asks, ‘What is the interplay between access to the right to the city and the opposing social realities of death?’ Using data from fieldwork conducted in 2014–2015 in Cape Town with NGOs and asylum seekers, I seek to examine the violent processes in which state-structured violence embedded in the heteronormative urban space impedes the survival of forcibly displaced queer people. I argue that LGBT+ asylum seekers in Cape Town navigate a landscape of abandonment and death in their attempts to access the right to the city.

Feral Rhetoric: Common Sense Animals and Metaphorical Beasts

The humanist tradition of rhetoric has historically emphasized differences rather than similarities between humans and nonhuman animals. Attending to similarities between humans and other species is considered anthropomorphic; however, avoiding similarities is anthropocentric. Using case studies of feral children, this essay attends to the way similarities may be constituted across differences, particularly in cases where wolves domesticate human children. Domestication is the constitution of common sense. Aristotle theorizes common sense as an interspecies capacity, while Cicero contends it is innately human. The humanist tradition has favored Cicero’s rendering. This essay works through the consequences of this adoption and concludes by speculating on Aristotle’s notion of common sense as zoomorphism, a form of animal troping.

Rethinking FQoL: The Dynamic Interplay Between Individual and Family Quality of Life

AbstractFamily quality of life (FQoL) is an emerging concept to understand and improve the well‐being and quality of life (QoL) of families. While there has been a lot of effort to conceptualize life domains of families and measurement tools are devised, few studies concentrate on an in‐depth understanding of FQoL. The specific aim of the current study is to understand the relation between individual QoL and FQoL, by studying families with a child/children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/DD) in the Netherlands. This can contribute to a stable foundation of the concept of FQoL. Methods: An explorative case study design was used, in which the parents, sibling, and child with ID voiced their thoughts on their FQoL. The presented case has been analysed through thematic and narrative analysis. A father and a mother with a child with an intellectual disability have joined the research team as co‐researchers. The relational dynamics found within the family illuminated an interactive pattern in which the son with ID acted as an Emperor, creating a Golden Cage for other family members and Umbilical Ties among them. The family portrait shows that FQoL is a dynamic and relational concept. By making strict distinctions between individual QoL and FQoL, the dynamics between family members and the way they work alone and/or together to ensure the well‐being of the family and its members can easily be overlooked. In addition to the common‐sense notion that FQoL and QoL support each other, conflicts and tensions can occur.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Using The Matrix to Reflect on Teacher Education

In this article we use The Matrix movie as a heuristic device that offers two possibilities for conceptualizing teacher education: as a mirror (looking at ourselves) and as a window (looking at teacher education). We begin by sharing our interests and reason for using self-study while examining the components of The Matrix, noting parallels between key elements in our educational world and Neo’s world. Here we unpack scenes from the movie while making connections between the Matrix world and the world of education in order to problematize many of the longstanding, traditional notions that hinder or prevent all of us from awakening fully. We then discuss how our journeys have been influenced and altered by both self-study and curriculum study, noting the many similarities of our plight of existence with Neo’s false reality by using our experiences as a lens to re-surface the messages in The Matrix for a new generation. These messages can serve as entry points in order to initiate conversations that expand current notions of the role of a teacher and the purpose of school toward more socially-just, democratic ends. We close with personal revelations and implications and consider how our stories can be used as a point-of-entry that can inform teacher preparation. Overall, we hope that our experiences will help others begin to question the seemingly common-sense notions and often unquestioned traditions deeply entrenched in our current world of education that are related to teaching, learning, and learning to teach.

Earth Writing

Geography means earth writing, and so it is perhaps fitting that writing itself has become a primary intellectual battleground in contemporary geographical thought. This article advocates for metaphorical earth writing, arguing that it unchains our geographical imaginations from the shackles of our disciplinary past by boldly embracing geopoetics. I hope to spark debate by promoting the undisciplining of geography as a means to open up a theoretical space for voice, where a material space of emancipation might follow. The notion that our epistemological, ontological, and methodological choices are not apolitical decisions without consequence guides my inquiry. Accordingly I critique the accusation of esotericism as a narrative that reifies the false dichotomy between academia and society. Aversion to metaphor fails to recognize the epistemological challenge it raises and underestimates how jargon combats commonsense notions that reinforce hierarchical power relations. How we write the earth constitutes a political choice, where disciplining Others into a singular way of knowing, being, and doing geography is an affront to the possibilities of space. When we make space for earth writing as a beautiful flourishing of geopoetics, we place the earth at the center of experience, releasing the light and energy of a more powerful geography.

Crafting knowledge exchange in the social science agenda

To any social science researcher the term “Knowledge Exchange” is a key buzzword in the academic community and wider society. In an article by Contandriopoulos, Lemire, Denis, and Tremblay (2010, p. 456) it was pointed out that knowledge exchange “rests on an implicit commonsense notion that this ‘knowledge’ must be evidence based”. This evidence, based within a social science context, relies upon two strands: theoretical data and empirical data. When examining the notion of Knowledge Exchange it becomes apparent that the concept has deep and meaningful connotations. These connotations have been driven by the involvements of the public and private sectors. Moreover, work carried out by Benneworth and Cunha (2015, p. 509) concludes that higher education institutions’ involvement in knowledge exchange “remains dynamic and influenced by universities” own strategic choices and relationships’. Traditionally, universities have had two key missions: to teach undergraduate/postgraduate students and to undertake research. Striukova and Rayna (2015, p. 488) have recently observed that universities now have a third mission, “knowledge exchange”, and that knowledge exchange plays a vital “integral part of the mix, without which the other two missions cannot run successfully.” Knowledge exchange is also a fundamental feature of “sustainable communities” (Powell, 2013) through the partnerships between HEIs and communities by which they serve. This is a point we will return to.

El modelo brasileño : la influencia de Roberto Campos y Câmara Canto en la dictadura chilena

Based on documents recently declassified by the Brazilian Truth Commission, this article investigates the economic and diplomatic relations between Brazil and Chile during the last years of Salvador Allende’s government and the first days of the Chilean military dictatorship. Despite the common sense notion that the United Stated was the one and only supporter of the Chilean September 11, the Brazilian influence was also instrumental to the overthrowing of Allende and to the confirmation of a military dictatorship in Chile. This article looks at two central figures of this process : the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Roberto Campos, and the Brazilian Ambassador in Santiago, Antonio da Câmara Canto. One of the most influential Brazilian economists, Campos disagreed with the state-based policies that characterized the Brazilian military regime. Instead of nationalization and price control, Campos believed in the strength of the free market and private institutions, a perspective similar to the one implemented by the Chicago Boys in Chile. Câmara Canto’s anti-communist ideas were central to his fight against the Allende regime and support to the dictatorship. These two figures are part of a much larger influence that, 40 years after the Chilean coup, begins to be investigated.

“Deregulation is so nineteen eighties, we’re into ‘better regulation’ now”

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations operate in the absence of a clear regulatory authority in a self-regulating environment. Significant moves towards self-regulation by various political administrations, together with successive waves of deregulation raise questions about the ability and effectiveness of industries and markets to regulate their own behaviour. This is a topical political and social concern with governments often appearing to favour self-regulation as opposed to the constitution of an official regulator. The absence of a regulator and the possibility of voluntary compliance raise a number of issues for the way in which organizations operate and the consequences, both intended and otherwise for organizations and society at large. Design/methodology/approach Empirically the authors explore the case of an industry leader within the Passive Fire Protection industry, as it adjusts to an increasingly self-regulated market environment. The authors document how organizational members make sense of the regulatory environment and the behaviour of actors within it. Findings The authors find that discourses of enterprise that underpin self-regulation permit actors a choice between compliance and non-compliance. Whilst also noting the prevalence of notions of morality in terms of how actors make sense of both compliant and non-compliant behaviour. Despite common sense notions that morality is seldom clear cut or unambiguous, the case study reveals that frameworks for understanding behaviour allow participants within the industry to make very clear demarcations between moral (compliant) and amoral (non-compliant) behaviour. Originality/value The authors learn how those that are compliant within the industry come to question the effectiveness of the regime to which they comply, thus ultimately undermining the integrity of the regime. In the absence of a strong regulatory regime, some agents draw upon notions of enterprise to justify an individualist, economic and pragmatic approach that makes non-compliance permissible. Thus the discourse of enterprise is present in the justification of both “moral” and “amoral” behaviour, this leads the authors to question the wisdom of policy that promotes the idea of enterprise as effectively ensuring compliance.

¿Puede realmente una mayoría estar equivocada?

<p class='p1'>Este trabajo se centra en la concepción rortiana de la justificación epistémica como el consenso asertivo comunitario y pretende ofrecer un argumento en contra de la identificación de ambas nociones. La crítica explota la perspectiva pragmatista que Rorty defiende: se propone entender que los estándares de justificación son históricocontextuales y se trata de mostrar que la reducción de la justificación al consenso entra en conflicto con esta idea. Para ello primero se exponen y evalúan los argumentos de Putnam contra la concepción rortiana que giran en torno del problema del relativismo, así como las réplicas de Rorty. En segundo lugar se arguye que nuestra noción de sentido común de la justificación impide la identificación entre justificación y consenso, y abre la posibilidad de que una comunidad pueda estar mayoritariamente equivocada respecto de cuáles creencias están justificadas.</p>

Pequeños huelguistas: participación de menores en los conflictos de la industria del dulce en Buenos Aires en la primera década del siglo XX

In this article, I challenge the common-sense notion of the passivity and low presence of children in the labor movements and in protests. Taking the case of the candy industry in Buenos Aires, profuse in child labor in the first decade of the 20th century, we show that children participated in strike movements, in occasions with their own modes of action, becoming active subjects.

The Habits of Normal, Innocent People, as Construed by the North American Juror

Deliberating juries draw on commonsense notions of what counts as “normal” behavior in distinguishing facts which are inculpatory from those that lend themselves to more innocent interpretation. Though this is a commonplace observation, prior research has shed little light on the underlying model(s) of normalcy. Taking a generative approach to inculpatory statements made by two real‐life juries deliberating the same case, I first enumerate the distinct assertions made, by implication, about normal, innocent people (NIPs), and then reduce these to a smaller number of rules revolving around the general themes of rationality, emotions, language, and relationships.

Between Revolution and the Racial Ghetto

This article revisits an historic exchange between two black ex-communists, Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood, a debate that prefigured many of the central contradictions of the black-power era. Their exchange followed Cruse’s influential 1962 essay forStudies on the Left, ‘Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American’, which declared that the American Negro was a ‘subject of domestic colonialism’. Written against the prevailing liberal integrationist commitments of the civil-rights movement, his essay called for black economic and political independence, and inspired many of the younger activists who would give birth to the black-power movement. In a series of essays for the Bay Area black radical journalSoulbook, Haywood criticised Cruse’s mishandling of class politics among blacks, and his retreat from anti-capitalism. This forgotten episode is important on its own terms, for what it says about the character and limitations of left-political thinking during the sixties, and equally for understanding and contesting those commonsensical notions of African-American public life in our times which too often remain rooted in the vanished social context and political realities of the twentieth-century racial ghetto.

The Moral Impermissibility of Efficient Breach

Recently, some economic theorists have argued that efficient breach is in fact morally justified. This paper demonstrates that these arguments employ chameleons, to use a term from Paul Pfleiderer. Chameleons are theoretically interesting but patently unrealistic models which are used to draw real-world conclusions. The arguments fail once the unrealistic assumptions are removed, vindicating the common-sense notion that intentionally breaching a contract is (prima facie) wrong.