'Common sense', 'Instinct', and 'Intuition'?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mehrgan

Key Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
Persian
Home Country
Iran
Current Location
Iran
Hi there,
I was wondering if I could the exact difference, if any, among the concepts above. I've almost got no difference between 'instinct' and 'common sense'. Thanks.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Hi there,
I was wondering if I could the exact difference, if any, among the concepts above. I've almost got no difference between 'instinct' and 'common sense'. Thanks.

There's little difference between "instinct" and "intuition" in most contexts, but neither of them are similar to "common sense".

"Instinct/intuition" are, for example, when you just know someone is watching you, even though you can't see them. It could be that unsettling feeling you get sometimes when your partner is late home from work and, instead of just thinking that they are late because of bad traffic, you're convinced they have been in a car accident (of course, most of the time, it turns out that you were wrong, but you still had that feeling). Baby animals feed from their mothers by instinct - they have not been taught that they should find a teat and suckle on it, yet they know to do this almost the instant they are born.


"Common sense" is knowing not to stick your fingers in a plug socket because you will be electrocuted. If you had never seen a plug socket before, you wouldn't know by intuition that it was dangerous to stick your fingers in it. Those of us who know that it's dangerous, know because we were probably told when we were very young. It's common sense to look both left and right before crossing the road as a pedestrian - it's just something that it is sensible to do.
 

Mehrgan

Key Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
Persian
Home Country
Iran
Current Location
Iran
Thank you so much for the detailed answer.

Does the word 'nous' mean the same as 'common sense'? Is it a common word?
 

Barb_D

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Member Type
Other
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
The only meaning I have for "nous" is from French class. I have never seen this word in English.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
We use it quite a lot in BrE, yes, and it pretty much means the same thing. It's pronounced to rhyme with "mouse" but spelt without the "e".
 

Barb_D

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Member Type
Other
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
We use it quite a lot in BrE, yes, and it pretty much means the same thing. It's pronounced to rhyme with "mouse" but spelt without the "e".

I have literally never heard this. Do you know anything about it's origin? Is it informal? (I like adding to my BrE vocabulary.)
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I have literally never heard this. Do you know anything about it's origin? Is it informal? (I like adding to my BrE vocabulary.)

I honestly knew nothing about where it was from so good old Wikipedia has come to the rescue again. The last line of the second main paragraph shows its usage as "common sense".
 

probus

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
To return to the original question:

To me, instinct refers to behaviour that has been built into all organisms by evolution. Instinct causes us to feed, avoid pain, seek pleasure and so forth.

Intuition is the faculty we have of guessing accurately without resort to detailed reasoning. Give us a clue or two, and suddenly we are pretty sure of something.

Common sense, on the other hand, means conventional wisdom. Perhaps it originally meant common knowledge, but nowadays it has been so charged politically that it means the quality that those who agree with us share and those who disagree lack.
 
Last edited:

SoothingDave

VIP Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
I have literally never heard this. Do you know anything about it's origin? Is it informal? (I like adding to my BrE vocabulary.)

I am equally astonished. Just when you think you have heard all of the BrE differences, something comes out of the blue. I would have also figured someone was using the French for "we," if I had to guess.
 

SoothingDave

VIP Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
To return to the original question:

To me, instinct refers to behaviour that has been built into all organisms by evolution. Instinct causes us to feed, avoid pain, seek pleasure and so forth.

Intuition is the faculty we have of guessing accurately without resort to detailed reasoning. Give us a clue or two, and suddenly we are pretty sure of something.

Common sense, on the other hand, means conventional wisdom. Perhaps it originally meant common knowledge, but nowadays it has been so charged politically that it means the quality that those who agree with us share and those who disagree lack.

An important distinction, which you were making is that "common sense" is largely learned, while "instinct" is not.

"Intuition" to me means things that you know or feel without a cognitive or intellectual explanation. They say women's intuition lets them know when their men are cheating or lying. The example given above about feeling someone watching you is another good example. I have personally felt "intuition" when driving my car and have had a feeling to slow down only moments before coming around a corner and seeing deer on the road. You can't explain it intellectually.
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I am equally astonished. Just when you think you have heard all of the BrE differences, something comes out of the blue. I would have also figured someone was using the French for "we," if I had to guess.

If you saw it written down, that would be perfectly understandable and in your head you would pronounce it "noo" as in the French, but if you heard it, you would probably think I was saying "mouse" and that you had misheard the first letter. Not that "mouse" would make any sense of course!
 

Barb_D

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2007
Member Type
Other
Native Language
American English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
How do you use it? Something like "She may not have a lot of formal education, but you can't beat her when it comes to nous"?
Or "Show some nous, will you? We're having soup so a spoon might have been more useful than a fork, don't you think?"
 

emsr2d2

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 28, 2009
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
I knew it was minus five degrees outside but I didn't even have the nous to put my hat on before I went out!

if you haven't got the nous to realise you're being taken for a ride, you deserve all you get!

It's rather informal. I wouldn't say "use/show some nous". We generally only refer to "having the nous [to do something]".
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
Nous was an ancient Greek concept that Plato and his predecessors used a lot. It's explained better in the link below.
I've read a fair bit of Plato in English, but no one seems to have kept 'nous' in the translation.

PS: I'd also like to endorse probus' distinction between instinct and intuition - they're totally different. Instincts are inborn behaviours; intuitions are unconscious hunches. But 'instinct' is often used for 'intuition' in lay parlance.

Nous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Mehrgan

Key Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2009
Member Type
Other
Native Language
Persian
Home Country
Iran
Current Location
Iran
Can we also put it this way that by 'intuition' we mean a level of unconscious perception we have of the surrounding environment and things happening there, while 'instinct' deals with the (immediate) reaction we have and show to the phenomena around?
 

probus

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
Canada
Current Location
Canada
Can we also put it this way that by 'intuition' we mean a level of unconscious perception we have of the surrounding environment and things happening there, while 'instinct' deals with the (immediate) reaction we have and show to the phenomena around?

It's not the kind of definition a dictionary would provide, but unconscious perception is perhaps a defining feature of intuition. When we experience an intuitive belief, usually we cannot say what clues led us to the belief. Malcolm Gladwell's recent best-seller Blink is all about this phenomenon.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top