Common Sense and Truth (The Incompatible)

"Common sense has its own necessity; it asserts its rights with the weapon peculiarly suitable to it, namely, appeal to the 'obviousness' of its claims and considerations. However, philosophy can never refute common sense, for the latter is deaf to the language of philosophy. Nor may it even wish to do so, since common sense is blind to what philosophy sets before its essential vision."
--Martin Heidegger from On the Essence of Truth

Common sense is concerned with what is obvious and what is today. Both of these get in the way of any sort of philosophical discussion and of finding what is true. The truth is by nature below the surface and the result of many conflicting influences and forces. Truth takes time and a stepping back in order to be discovered. When looking for what is common and obvious, you avoid what is below the surface, what is complex and things that take time or perspective to understand.

Something that is presented as obviously true should be taken with suspicion. That it presents itself as obvious means that it is likely only superficial and/or simple, and the true is never superficial and seldom simple. The correct maybe superficial, but the true should not be. The correct may point towards the true, but going from the correct to the true means leaving behind the obvious and the simple.

An 'obvious truth' is the product of common sense; it may be correct, but there is a world of difference between the correct and the true.