> The assumption here is that everything to understand about the
> social world can be put in terms that "workers in St. P" can
> relate to. This isn't true of physics; why should it be true
> of society? A scientific understanding of X requires a great
> deal of training, creativity, innovation, and outright
> rejection of common sense.
>
> Why do you think understanding
> society is so easy that people can do it by relying on
> everyday concepts and knowledge? That's like saying
> somebody can understand the structure of the solar
> by applying common-sense words like "sunrise" and
> "sunset".
>
> Miles
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"If viewed warily, the network of principles and assumptions constitutive of our common sense conceptual framework can be seen to be as speculative and as artificial as any overtly theoretical system...In short, it appears that all knowledge (even perceptual knowledge) is theoretical; that there is no such thing as non-theoretical understanding. Our common sense conceptual framework stands unmasked as being itself a theory, or a battery of related theories. And where before we saw a dichotomy between the theoretical and the non-theoretical, we are left with little more than a distinction between freshly minted theory and thoroughly thumb-worn theory whose cultural assimilation is complete." [Paul Churchland "Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind]