Sociology and Common Sense

The relationship between sociology and common sense is one of the most foundational epistemological debates in the discipline. While common sense provides practical, everyday knowledge to navigate social life, sociology offers a systematic, scientific, and empirical lens to analyze society. For a student of sociology, distinguishing between the two—and understanding how they interact—is crucial for developing the Sociological Imagination.

Historical Context: The Emergence of Sociological Thinking

Sociology emerged in 19th-century Europe as a response to the disruptions caused by the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Early founders like Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim sought to establish sociology as a distinct, objective science (Positivism). To achieve this, it was imperative to break away from traditional philosophy, theology, and everyday “common sense”, which were largely based on unverified assumptions, religious dogma, and anecdotal observations.

Sociology vs. Common Sense: Divergence and Demystification

Sociology constantly challenges and scrutinizes common sense assumptions. Prominent sociologists have viewed common sense as an obstacle to true scientific inquiry.

• Emile Durkheim: In his seminal work, The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim argued that sociologists must actively eradicate “prenotions” or common sense assumptions. His study Suicide empirically debunked the common sense view that suicide is purely a psychological or individualistic act, proving it to be a social fact driven by the degree of social integration and regulation.
• Peter Berger: In Invitation to Sociology, Berger famously stated that the first wisdom of sociology is that “things are not what they seem.” Sociology unmasks the facade of social reality.
• C. Wright Mills: Through his concept of the Sociological Imagination, Mills differentiated between “personal troubles” (common sense view) and “public issues” (sociological view), urging people to link individual biographies to larger historical and social structures.
• Antonio Gramsci & Karl Marx: Marxist thinkers view common sense as False Consciousness. Gramsci argued that common sense is often the ideology of the ruling class disguised as universal truth, used to maintain hegemony.

Key Distinctions Between Sociology and Common Sense

Convergence: Common Sense as the Subject Matter of Sociology

While Positivists rejected common sense, interpretative traditions in sociology argue that common sense cannot be entirely discarded, as it forms the very basis of human interaction.

• Alfred Schutz (Phenomenology): Schutz argued that the social world is constructed through the “typifications” and common sense knowledge of everyday actors. The sociologist’s job is to study this “lifeworld.”
• Harold Garfinkel (Ethnomethodology): Garfinkel studied the unspoken common sense rules that govern daily life. Through his “Breaching Experiments” (deliberately breaking social norms), he demonstrated how much society relies on shared, taken-for-granted common sense to maintain social order.

The Indian Context: Challenging Common Sense (Paper 2 Integration)

In Indian sociology, scholars have extensively used empirical research to debunk deeply entrenched cultural myths and common sense understandings of Indian society.

• Andre Beteille: In his essay Sociology and Common Sense, Beteille explicitly warns against conflating the two. He argues that common sense in India relies on stereotypes (e.g., all Brahmins are wealthy, all Dalits are poor). Through his study in Sripuram, Beteille showed the empirical reality of the divergence of caste, class, and power. He emphasized that sociology relies on the comparative method, making it anti-utopian and distinct from common sense.
• M.N. Srinivas: The common sense view, propagated by early Indologists, was that the Indian caste system was completely rigid, static, and textually bound. Srinivas’s concept of Sanskritization empirically proved that caste possessed systemic mobility and was dynamic.
• A.M. Shah: Common sense assumes that industrialization is destroying the Indian Joint Family. However, A.M. Shah’s sociological studies proved that while the “household” dimension (residential) may be becoming nuclear, the “family” dimension (functional jointness, property, rituals) remains strong.
• S.C. Dube: The common sense/colonial view (as proposed by Charles Metcalfe) saw Indian villages as self-sufficient, isolated “little republics.” Dube’s study of Shamirpet village debunked this, showing that Indian villages were deeply integrated into wider economic, political, and kinship networks.

Contemporary Relevance in a Globalized World

In today’s digital age, the line between common sense and verifiable fact is increasingly blurred. We live in a “Post-Truth” era where algorithmic echo chambers, WhatsApp university, and fake news validate subjective anecdotes as universal truths. For instance, the common sense rhetoric against immigrants often blames them for economic downturns. However, contemporary sociological and economic studies consistently show that structural changes (like automation and neoliberal policies) are the actual drivers of unemployment. Sociological thinking acts as a critical antidote to the hyper-polarizing, emotion-driven “manufactured common sense” of the digital age.

Conclusion

The relationship between sociology and common sense is dialectical.

While sociology begins by observing the everyday social world, it must systematically transcend the limitations of anecdotal common sense to uncover hidden structural realities. Common sense provides the raw material for sociological inquiry, but sociology refines it into objective knowledge. As the prominent sociologist Zygmunt Bauman aptly observed, the primary purpose of sociology is to “defamiliarize the familiar”—to disrupt our comfortable, common sense understanding of the world, thereby empowering us to see the invisible forces that shape our lives and enabling us to create a more just society.