UPSC 2025
Article written by Mrs Anshu Sharma, IIMBian, Experience in Training of Civil Services Aspirants for 18 years.
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Common sense means the everyday understanding that people have about society and social life. It is based on daily experiences, traditions, customs and what we learn from family, friends, media and society.
Common sense helps people manage day-to-day life, but it is often unplanned, untested and based on assumptions. Many times, it accepts things as “natural” or “normal” without questioning them.
Common knowledge refers to the shared beliefs, ideas, values and norms that are widely accepted in a society. It is passed from one generation to another through social institutions like family, religion, education and culture. Common knowledge helps maintain social order, but it can also support stereotypes, inequalities and social biases.
Relationship between Common Knowledge and Sociology:
Common knowledge and sociology are related because both deal with society and social behavior. However, their approaches are different. Common sense explains social issues in a simple and surface-level way, while sociology studies them in a scientific and systematic manner.
Sociology questions common sense ideas and tries to find deeper reasons behind social phenomena. For example, common sense may say that poverty exists because people are lazy. Sociology, on the other hand, studies factors like lack of education, unemployment, social class and unequal opportunities.
Sociology uses research, data and theories to examine society objectively. It connects individual problems with larger social structures, which C. Wright Mills called the sociological imagination. Sociology does not completely reject common knowledge but improves and corrects it by providing logical and evidence-based explanations.
Conclusion:
Common sense and common knowledge give a basic understanding of society, but sociology goes beyond them. It critically examines social reality and helps us understand society in a deeper, more accurate way.