Here's a simple idea that explains a lot about how the world works: "I know that you know that I know." It might sound complicated, but it's the reason we stop at red lights or believe money has value ...

How many of us have been admonished, "Use your common sense!" In actuality, the person has no idea what they are talking about, unfair to you. Reality and truth are not the same. We confuse the idea ...

IN 1776 THOMAS PAINE, a traitorous Englishman living in the American colonies, published a seditious 47-page pamphlet. Called “Common Sense”, it became a best-seller. It argued that the colonies ...

The everyday meaning of “common knowledge” is knowledge held in common, often as an open secret. For example, it is common knowledge that publishers like books that seek, via quirky examples, to ...

In the 18th century, philosopher James Beattie compiled a list of 17 common-sense beliefs. A few are incontrovertible: “I exist”; “A whole is greater than a part”; “Virtue and vice are different”. But ...

Source: Scribner / Used with permission. In a New Yorker cartoon about marital relations, a husband tells his wife, “Of course I care about how you imagined I thought you perceived I wanted you to ...

You can always tell when someone is able to use common sense in most situations they find themselves in. It's not about how intelligent they are and how many books they read; rather, it's about their ...

Professor, English and the Institute for the Comparative Study of Literature, Art, and Culture; Academic Director, Re.Climate: Centre for Climate Communication and Public Engagement, Carleton ...