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In a reply to my comment that "Postivism and 'common sense' both share a 
concept of knowledge acqusition as reflecting or picturing a 
'world-out-there.'  As such, it does not acknowledge the role of dialogue 
and social mediation in the construction of economic theories," Greg  
Ransom wrote:  
 
> There is no incompatibility between talk of advances 
> in understanding of something other than our own selves and 
> seeing that advance of understanding as taking place within a 
> social context that includes advances in shared linguistic practice. 
> To hold otherwise is a product of positivism, and flies in the face 
> of everday understanding -- and indeed logic.  A non-philosophical 
> sense of our background understanding -- i.e. a non-positivistic 
> 'common sense' -- would reject Jonathon's distinction.  I would argue 
> that such a rejection is exactly what you find in the later work of 
> Ludwig Wittgenstein.   
>  
 
I have puzzled about this response for a week and still it confuses me.   
Please clarify some of your statements.  What are "advances in something  
other than our selves?"  The way Flavio defined common sense reality, it  
sounded like "something other than our selves."  In fact, it had a  
definite a priori, universal character to it.  If so, the notion that it  
provides a "social context" is null; it is separate and apart from our  
social context.  And the flick of the hand use of "non-philosophical  
sense" is a rather disingenuous move--dispensing with metaphysics in a  
metaphysical argument when it suits your purpose.  And, please be more  
specific about Wittgenstein and how he relates to Flavio's argument (I  
certainly didn't see any reference in his editorial). 
 
Why do we care about a "common sense reality?"  It seems to me the most  
important message of the editorial was about using common sense in  
methodology.  But, of course, moderation is never a sexy message. 
 
Jonathon E. Mote 
Department of Sociology 
University of Pennsylvania 
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