The Ground Beneath our Feet
David Ray Griffin on Common Sense Philosophy
Personal Note: I knew David Ray Griffin (1939–2022) as a friend and admired him as a scholar, thinker, and prophet. He stood within one of the three major traditions of process thought: the speculative, exemplified by Alfred North Whitehead; the rationalist, exemplified by Charles Hartshorne; and the empirical, exemplified by Bernard Loomer. To my mind, Griffin belonged most clearly to the speculative tradition, though he carried a strong rationalist streak.
That might lead some to assume he was disconnected from what matters most in the empirical tradition—namely, lived human experience. But the opposite is true. Griffin was deeply committed to developing a philosophy that takes seriously the world as we actually experience it. Central to this commitment was his defense of what he called hard-core common sense beliefs: foundational assumptions we all presuppose in practice, even if we deny them in theory—such as the reality of the external world, personal agency, and moral responsibility.
It is all the more noteworthy that, among his many accomplishments, Griffin also argued that even paranormal experiences, often dismissed in academic circles, are not necessarily irrational or unscientific. On the contrary, he believed they, too, could be understood as compatible with a broader and deeper view of common sense. For Griffin, philosophy should not begin by excluding parts of experience but by asking honestly: What do we already live as if we know? What do we actually experience?
The rest of this page is a very short introduction to that very commitment—to Griffin’s belief that philosophy must be grounded in the ordinary, in what we cannot help but trust as real. For Griffin, common sense was not the enemy of reason. It was the soil from which thoughtful reason must grow.
That might lead some to assume he was disconnected from what matters most in the empirical tradition—namely, lived human experience. But the opposite is true. Griffin was deeply committed to developing a philosophy that takes seriously the world as we actually experience it. Central to this commitment was his defense of what he called hard-core common sense beliefs: foundational assumptions we all presuppose in practice, even if we deny them in theory—such as the reality of the external world, personal agency, and moral responsibility.
It is all the more noteworthy that, among his many accomplishments, Griffin also argued that even paranormal experiences, often dismissed in academic circles, are not necessarily irrational or unscientific. On the contrary, he believed they, too, could be understood as compatible with a broader and deeper view of common sense. For Griffin, philosophy should not begin by excluding parts of experience but by asking honestly: What do we already live as if we know? What do we actually experience?
The rest of this page is a very short introduction to that very commitment—to Griffin’s belief that philosophy must be grounded in the ordinary, in what we cannot help but trust as real. For Griffin, common sense was not the enemy of reason. It was the soil from which thoughtful reason must grow.
The Ground Beneath our Feet
Common Sense and the Ground Beneath Our Feet
"My boyfriend insists the whole world is just in his mind—but every time we argue, he tries to convince me of his point. If I were just a thought in his head, you’d think I’d agree with him more often."
So said Maya, a former student of mine, after we had a class discussion on solipsism. She paused, then asked thoughtfully, “Is there a common sense philosophy that actually takes into account what we all presuppose in practice—even if we deny it in theory?”
I told her about the work of David Ray Griffin, who argued precisely that philosophy must take seriously certain hard-core common sense beliefs—beliefs that are not merely products of culture or habit, but deep assumptions that everyone lives by, whether they admit it or not. According to Griffin, these beliefs are “universally presupposed in practice even when they are denied in theory,” and “cannot be denied verbally without self-contradiction.”
Maya nodded. “I have other friends,” she said, “who argue that freedom is an illusion, that everything is determined by past events down to the last molecule. But then they get mad at themselves for not studying harder, or they praise someone for being courageous. Isn’t that freedom sneaking back in the side door?”
“Exactly," I said, "And Griffin would say that’s a perfect example of a hard-core belief in action. Even when your friends deny freedom in their theories, they assume it in their behavior—they make choices, assign responsibility, and live as if agency is real. Freedom is woven into their actions, even when it’s missing from their explanations.”
Maya leaned back in her chair and gave a small laugh. “So maybe philosophy shouldn’t just be about saying clever things no one can live by. Maybe it’s about making sense of what we already know—deep down—in how we move and act and care.”
I nodded. “That’s what Griffin had in mind. Philosophy, at its best, doesn’t float above life—it grows out of it. It begins not in the clouds, but in the ground beneath our feet.”
Common Sense and Values
I am reminded of another classroom moment—a conversation about moral relativism. A student named Jordan declared with conviction, “There are no real values. Right and wrong are just social constructs. Nothing is objectively good or bad.”
But just a few minutes later, when another student interrupted him mid-sentence, Jordan frowned and said sharply, “That’s so rude. You should let people finish talking.”
Another student smiled and gently asked, “Wait—if there are no objective values, why does it matter if someone’s being rude? Isn’t that just your opinion?”
Jordan hesitated. “Well… it’s just basic respect.”
“Exactly,” the student replied. “But isn’t that a value?”
The room was quiet for a moment. Jordan had denied the existence of objective value in theory but appealed to it in practice. He acted as if respect and fairness were more than personal preferences—as if they were, in fact, real.
This, too, is what Griffin helps us see: the contradiction between philosophical theory and practical presupposition. While values may not always be listed among the classic “hard-core” common sense beliefs like causality or freedom, they often operate just as powerfully in practice. We appeal to them when we protest unfairness, celebrate generosity, or call out cruelty. Their presence in our actions suggests that they are more than convenient fictions—they are woven into the very fabric of our experience.
It’s easy to build castles in the sky. But real thinking—thinking that matters—starts on the ground, with the truths we trust every time we speak, decide, or love. That’s where common sense, rightly understood, still has something vital to offer.
Common Sense and God
If philosophy begins in the ground beneath our feet—if it honors the beliefs and values woven into our lives—then what about God?
This was not a question David Ray Griffin avoided. On the contrary, it was central to his work. He believed that many modern and postmodern thinkers rejected the idea of God because they rightly rejected a particular image: an omnipotent, unchanging ruler who intervenes arbitrarily in the world. But what if that image is the problem—not the idea of God itself?
Griffin argued for a reimagined understanding of God—one consistent with hard-core common sense beliefs and lived human experience. He saw God not as an all-controlling monarch outside the world, but as an inherently relational presence within it: a persuasive power rather than a coercive force, a source of fresh possibility rather than a breaker of natural law.
In this view, God is not above causality and freedom but works through them. Griffin’s God does not override the order of the world but lures each creature—moment by moment—toward greater harmony, intensity, and beauty. This divine lure is never imposed. It respects freedom because it presupposes freedom. In that sense, the idea of God is inseparable from those hard-core beliefs about agency, value, and relationality.
This is not to say, however, that the existence of God is beyond all doubt. Following Alfred North Whitehead, Griffin acknowledged that belief in God is not self-evident, nor immune to questioning. But he held that it is more rational than not to believe in God, given the nature of experience, the reality of value, order and novelty. This is not the place to go into the arguments that Giffin and others found convincing. It is to suggest, however, that belief in God, as understood by Griffin, does not violate common sense—it can be part of it. It can arise not from blind faith or doctrinal authority, but from careful attention to the world as we live it.
In a world where many deny God in theory but cry out for justice, beg for meaning, and long for beauty in practice, David Ray Griffin’s vision offers a bridge. It is a vision of God not hovering above the world but arising from its depths—a presence as real as the call of conscience and as intimate as the breath beneath our words. If philosophy must begin with common sense, then theology must begin with common experience. And within that experience, many still feel the lure of something more—something faithful, patient, and quietly divine.
Let it also be said that the ground beneath our feet shares certain common features—freedom, an external world, values, perhaps even God—but it also differs profoundly depending on where we stand. Historical circumstance shapes this ground: for some, it is a source of delight; for others, a place of terror. These contingencies, too, are ground beneath our feet. Griffin knew this. His trust was in a God who meets people amid the contingencies, not just the commonalities—especially the vulnerable. This is not a remote deity of abstraction, but a God who shares in the struggle, who dwells in the broken places, and who beckons us toward justice, meaning, and beauty from within the flux of life itself. For Griffin, divine presence is not found above history, but within it—in its suffering, its possibilities, and its longing for transformation.
For Griffin, and for many others, the ground beneath our feet transcends metaphysics but not the contingencies of experience. A "common sense" philosophy will be attuned to these contingencies even as aware of metaphysical commonalities. It will address the needs of our time: climate change, violence, injustice, inequity, the suffering of other animals, ecological degradation. Addressing these needs, too, is obvious, almost common sensical, for those with eyes inspired by David Ray Griffin's magnificent work,
- Jay McDaniel
Primary Sources for Further Study
1. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (2001)
2. Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (2000)
3. Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy (2007)
4. Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration (1997)
- Chapter 2: "Philosophical Realism and Hard-Core Common Sense"
- This chapter is the most focused and systematic treatment of Griffin’s notion of hard-core common sense beliefs.
- He defines these as beliefs that "are inevitably presupposed in practice, even by those who deny them in theory."
- He contrasts them with "soft-core" beliefs, which are culturally relative and revisable.
2. Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (2000)
- Griffin uses hard-core common sense beliefs to argue that scientific materialism is inadequate because it denies many of the experiential realities (e.g., freedom, value, purpose) that we presuppose in action.
3. Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy (2007)
- Griffin links Whitehead’s metaphysical method with the appeal to common sense, emphasizing that metaphysics must not contradict the assumptions embedded in lived experience.
4. Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration (1997)
- Contains applications of his common sense framework to controversial topics, showing how dismissing certain experiential claims violates hard-core assumptions.
The History of Common Sense Philosophy
Melvyn Bragg looks at an unexpected philosophical subject - the philosophy of common sense. In the first century BC the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero claimed “There is no statement so absurd that no philosopher will make it”. Indeed, in the history of Western thought, philosophers have rarely been credited with having much common sense. In the 17th century Francis Bacon made a similar point when he wrote “Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high”. Samuel Johnson picked up the theme with characteristic pugnacity in 1751 declaring that “the public would suffer less present inconvenience from the banishment of philosophers than from the extinction of any common trade.”
Philosophers, it seems, are as distinct from the common man as philosophy is from common sense.But as Samuel Johnson scribbled his pithy knockdown in the Rambler magazine, the greatest philosophers in Britain were locked in a dispute about the very thing he denied them: Common Sense. It was a dispute about the nature of knowledge and the individuality of man, from which we derive the idea of common sense today. The chief antagonists were a minister of the Scottish Church, Thomas Reid, and the bon-viveur darling of the Edinburg chattering classes, David Hume. It's a journey that also takes in Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant, John Locke and some of the most profound questions about human knowledge we are capable of asking.With A C Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London; Melissa Lane, Senior University Lecturer in History at Cambridge University; Alexander Broadie, Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow.
Hard-Core Common Sense Beliefs
Paraphrase from Wikipedia
David Ray Griffin emphasized the idea of a special category of beliefs he termed “hard-core common sense” beliefs—an idea that had been central to his work since at least the mid-1980s and was a consistent feature of what he described as “constructive postmodernism.” By the late 1990s, this concept had become a central pillar of his philosophical framework. Griffin distinguished these hard-core beliefs from ordinary, or “soft-core,” common sense beliefs, noting that the latter are often shaped by preexisting theoretical and cultural assumptions. In contrast, hard-core beliefs are those that people unavoidably presuppose in practice, even if they attempt to deny them in theory. As Griffin put it, such beliefs “cannot be denied verbally without self-contradiction.”
Illustrative examples include: invoking causality when trying to argue against it; exercising one’s freedom in the very act of rejecting the notion of freedom; and relying on the existence of an external world when driving a car, even if one claims to be a solipsist.
Though thinkers like Thomas Reid and Charles Peirce had earlier discussed similar ideas, Griffin’s own stance is deeply informed by Alfred North Whitehead’s insight in Process and Reality that all thinking is subject to certain presuppositions required “for the regulation of our lives,” and that such assumptions are “imperative in experience.” For Griffin, this leads to the view that “the ultimate test of any philosophical position is whether it does justice to the hard-core ideas that are inevitably presupposed in practice by all human beings.”
At the same time, Griffin maintained a level of epistemic humility, recognizing that the exact articulation of these hard-core beliefs is “always fallible.” Therefore, rather than serving as a rigid foundation, they function more like a “compass,” helping us recognize when a philosophical view has strayed from the lived realities it ought to acknowledge.
Illustrative examples include: invoking causality when trying to argue against it; exercising one’s freedom in the very act of rejecting the notion of freedom; and relying on the existence of an external world when driving a car, even if one claims to be a solipsist.
Though thinkers like Thomas Reid and Charles Peirce had earlier discussed similar ideas, Griffin’s own stance is deeply informed by Alfred North Whitehead’s insight in Process and Reality that all thinking is subject to certain presuppositions required “for the regulation of our lives,” and that such assumptions are “imperative in experience.” For Griffin, this leads to the view that “the ultimate test of any philosophical position is whether it does justice to the hard-core ideas that are inevitably presupposed in practice by all human beings.”
At the same time, Griffin maintained a level of epistemic humility, recognizing that the exact articulation of these hard-core beliefs is “always fallible.” Therefore, rather than serving as a rigid foundation, they function more like a “compass,” helping us recognize when a philosophical view has strayed from the lived realities it ought to acknowledge.