One question

Posted by Lewis on July 14, 2003

In Reply to: One question posted by Christine on July 14, 2003

: Hi,

: Could anyone help me with the brcketed sentences?

: Commonsensical beliefs, far from fixed or immobile, are in a constant state of renewal: ('new ideas' are always entering daily life and encountering the 'sedimentation' left by the contradictiory, ambiguous, chaotic aggregate of disparate conceptions. In critiquing what passes for common sense as 'the residue of absolutely basic and commonly-agreed, consensual wisdoms), you can't learn, through common sense, how things are: you can only discover where they fit into the existing scheme of things.

: Thanks a lot.

['new ideas' are always entering daily life and encountering the 'sedimentation' left by the contradictiory, ambiguous, chaotic aggregate of disparate conceptions]
innovations and new concepts come up against what has gone before. From geology "sedimentation" is the laying down of one thing on top of another so that over time it hardens into layered rock - here it means that some ideas have become accepted as "received wisdom" whether or not they actually make sense and whether or not various ideas appear mutually exclusive and hardened into "common sense".

[In critiquing what passes for common sense as 'the residue of absolutely basic and commonly-agreed, consensual wisdoms]
Trying to make sense of or rationalise popular notions, received wisdom or often-repeated expressions one is looking for the basic common threads of all those ideas.

Hope that helps