This article offers a reconstruction of Dewey's account of common sense, emphasising its emotional, intellectual and practical aspects. Dewey analyses the similarities and differences between everyday problem solving and the experimental method, while also emphasising the tension between qualitative immediacy and the abstractions produced by science. This framework enables us to understand the political implications of common sense. The article then places Dewey in dialogue with Clifford Geertz, whose anthropological analysis of common sense as a cultural system highlights naturalness, thinness, practicality, informality and accessibility as its five defining features. Juxtaposing Dewey and Geertz suggests a synthesis in which common sense is both culturally situated and open to pragmatic reconstruction. The conclusion briefly discusses a possible application of this Deweyan-Geertzian model to contemporary debates on the nature of the encounter between anthropologists and natives.
This article reconstructs Cicero's original contribution to the concept of sensus communis by situating it within Roman rhetorical practice and Cicero's broader social philosophy. Departing from Aristotle's object-oriented and truth-seeking model of rhetoric, Cicero redefines rhetorical activity as a socially embedded, audience-oriented practice aimed at securing the welfare of the state. This shift transforms the rhetor into an orator-statesman whose task is not simply to discover truth, but to mobilise the shared norms, emotions, and expectations of the community. The article argues that Cicero's understanding of sensus communis-a socially produced horizon of shared norms, feelings, and ways of acting-functions as a communal precondition for persuasive public reasoning. By analysing Cicero's four personae in De Officiis, the study shows how Cicero anticipates a theory of collective subjectivity in which individuality emerges from the interplay of reason, singularity, circumstance, and judgement. Through close readings of Pro Plancio and De Oratore, the article ultimately presents sensus communis as both a mode of social belonging and a medium of self-determination within communal life.
This article examines two interpretations of Kant's concept of common sense-those of Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Fran & ccedil;ois Lyotard. Its aim is to articulate the political dimension of this concept and to explore how each of these philosophers proposes to overcome the dogmatism and repressiveness associated with it. Deleuze conceptualizes common sense as part of what he calls 'the dogmatic image of thought'. His reading of Kant's doctrine of the faculties shows how the different types of common sense (logical, moral, and aesthetic) establish restrictive regimes both within and between subjects. The deregulation of the order among the faculties that occurs in the experience of the sublime offers a line of fight from the regime of common sense without instituting a new one in its place. Lyotard also considers Kantian common sense in relation to the structured formation of the subject and the political community. However, in his reading, aesthetic common sense (sensus communis) exists outside the structure of subjectivity, making it possible and continuously reconstituting it. Common sense haunts the subject, destabilizes it, and serves as a constant reminder that its various components remain heterogeneous and can never be fully unified, complete, or identical to themselves over time. Similarly, the political community, for Lyotard, emerges as a polyphony freed from predetermined movement, capable of repeatedly reinventing itself thanks to a common sense that remains external to it, both enabling and disrupting it at once. Thus, while Deleuze ultimately interprets aesthetic common sense as belonging to a restrictive and dogmatic logic, Lyotard views it as a singular point existing outside of that logic, challenging it. Rather than adjudicate between the two readings-each of which is grounded in Kant's text-this article seeks to employ both in order to highlight the oppressive dimensions of seemingly self-evident structures of subjectivity and political life, and to articulate possible ways to disrupt them.
This paper proposes an exploration of notions of common sense within Chinese Neo-Confucianism. While common sense has played a key role in the history of European traditions, indicating both lower and higher types of knowledge depending on its context of usage, the notion has been rarely explored in the context of non-European traditions. In the following discussion, I propose to interpret specific aspects of Neo-Confucian theories of knowledge as theories of common sense that, while greatly differing from each other, nevertheless point to a practical endeavour or a modus operandi with a twofold relevance; on the one hand, common sense denotes a shared practical knowledge which serves as a necessary basis for common experience and understanding while, on the other hand, it also signals that which needs to be challenged in order to acquire higher knowledge of both the self and reality in general. Since Neo-Confucianism is a broad and diverse philosophical tradition, the discussion will focus on the theories elaborated by the two Cheng brothers (Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao) and Wang Yangming, as they represent two major philosophical tendencies that display differing understandings of common sense. In the first section, I start by making some preliminary remarks with regard to the role of common sense in European philosophical discourse, as well as considering a set of methodological challenges posed by the aim of my discussion. I then examine a set of core elements within which Neo-Confucian theories of knowledge are inscribed, with particular focus on li (sic)('principle', 'pattern', 'coherence'), the nature (xing (sic)) and the heartmind (xin (sic)). On the basis of these elements, section three is devoted to discussing the Chengs' theory of the investigation of things (gewu (sic)(sic)) and Wang Yangming's elaboration of pure knowing (liangzhi(sic)(sic)), on the basis of which I propose to individuate two differing notions of common sense. I conclude by considering the potential dangers of universalising notions of common sense as well as the merits of cross-cultural analysis in improving our understanding of the meaning and function of this notion.
Capitalism, as a social formation, is characterised by a dynamic relationship of power and domination that simultaneously provides possibilities for agency. This phenomenon of capitalist ambivalences is particularly evident when examining common sense. Common sense is a pivotal concept in Antonio Gramsci's understanding of hegemony, which is based on ambivalences itself. In this article, I analyse the ambivalences of bourgeois capitalism through Gramsci's concept of common sense and its associated ambivalences. Adopting a feminist perspective, I demonstrate how common sense can be employed to reveal a conflictual ambivalence, consisting of an analysis of bourgeois capitalist hegemony and the potential for individual and collective agency, both within and beyond it. While asking for possibilities of agency, this article highlights three modes of ambivalence: the ambivalence of everyday life in capitalism; the ambivalence of capitalist hegemony; and the ambivalence of contradictions in capitalism. Gramsci's perspective remains relevant today as the masses' unbroken consent to capitalism and the growing appeal to authoritarianism and fascism are cyclically prompting questions about common sense. Exploring the ambivalences of common sense allows us to analyse the current societal conditions, however, without resigning ourselves to them.
While many if not most discussions of common sense take their bearings from Hannah Arendt, this essay takes its from Stanley Cavell, who, though he famously professes uninterest in the idea of common sense, opens up a helpful approach to it in his consideration of the kind of claims made by ordinary language philosophers who know no more about their topic (what we in this language group say when) than their opponents. In order to bring this out, I distinguish between common sense as a passive, historically variable social a priori (what passes as so or true without argument or notice in a given community) and a critically efficacious common sense that actively challenges this, demanding reform, revolution or conversion. I describe the latter as an 'aspirational common sense', and explore its evocation in the writings or Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. As I demonstrate, each of these embraces an essentially paradoxical idea: something can be a matter of common sense though it is not currently commonly acknowledged to be good sense. I argue that this paradox is an essential feature to democracy in our time, one that opens individual citizens to the future and their own as yet unarticulated common sense.
The concept of common sense plays only a marginal role in Frankfurt School critical theory, despite its egalitarian and emancipatory promise. Focusing on Adorno, this article argues that his scattered reflections reveal both a negative, conformist dimension of common sense and a fragile, yet real, emancipatory potential. Through analyses of 'Opinion Delusion Society' and Minima Moralia, the article reconstructs Adorno's critique of common sense as a socially conditioned form of 'common nonsense' that substitutes conformity and power for truth, blurring the line between opinion and knowledge. It then turns to Kant's account of sensus communis in & sect;40 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment to clarify how a procedural, reflective, and universalizing capacity might resist the pathologies Adorno identifies. By bringing Kant's maxims of thinking into dialogue with Adorno's social critique, the article outlines a procedural, non-foundational model of common sense grounded in communicative openness, mutual recognition, and the capacity to disagree without coercion. While not offering a full critical theory of common sense, it proposes the conceptual groundwork for such a project-an urgent task in light of contemporary political appeals to common sense.
This essay articulates an ontological perspectivism for a relational world, drawing comparatively upon Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Mannheim, Alfred North Whitehead, Viveiros de Castro and Carl Rovelli to do so. Whitehead, contesting Einstein’s extrapolation of determinism from gravitational processes to all being, provides a rich vocabulary through which to articulate a more pervasive perspectival ontology in a universe replete with diverse pulses of creativity. But, by comparison to Nietzsche, Whitehead’s intimations of an immanent god and powerful tendencies toward cosmic harmonisation over time may fail to come to terms adequately with recurrent periods of planetary turbulence. Viveiros de Castro enriches this theme immensely by exploring the role of ‘disjunctive syntheses’ in Amazonian philosophies of life and by showing western philosophy how much it can learn from Amazonian shamans. But he may not explore, because it does not apply to his anthropology, the issues the multi-perspectivism he embraces pose to and within western studies of large, nonliving processes. Rovelli, a quantum theorist, radicalises perspectivism, carrying it into both living and nonliving processes. Rovelli does not, however, appreciate sufficiently differential modes of responsiveness, resistances and reserves among divergent living and nonliving forces. And, by comparison particularly to Whitehead and de Castro, he does not explore how a creative nexus between two divergent perspectives might occur. By considering each of these protean thinkers in relation to the others, it is hoped both that the problems in perspectivism are highlighted and that a more vibrant, though contestable, version begins to unfold.
Political debate can be intellectually dissatisfying. A common philosophical response is to decry allowing emotions to overrule epistemic respect for facts. The contrary response given here invites more careful attention to the role of emotions in reasoned discussion. That role can be captured by analytical distinctions between rationality and reasonableness, fittingness and worthiness, consensus and conciliation. The analysis chastens philosophical expectations that justifiable emotional perceptions yield moral knowledge. Rather than demanding strictly rational resolution, responsible social and political conflicts invite the conciliatory form of normative differences described here.
The very idea of a particular Chinese path to modernisation may seem controversial, especially when it is taken to imply that Chinese modernisation should be subject to normative constraints reflecting Chinese traditions and culture. This paper considers a possible justification for this idea, exploring an analogy between personal and societal development. Personal development is commonly viewed as being constrained by concerns for authenticity and continuity, that is, remaining true to oneself and acting in accordance with one's character, preferences and core values. This paper uses the notions of transformative experience and self-cultivation (the latter known from both Western and Chinese philosophy) to further substantiate the idea that processes of societal development should be sensitive to concerns other than maximising welfare and meeting universal criteria of rightness.
The article analyses social invisibility as a systemic ill of contemporary societies. For this purpose, we interpret Andreas Reckwitz's analysis of late modernity by combining Pierre Bourdieu's and Axel Honneth's accounts. Reckwitz argues that late-modern societies must be understood as ‘societies of singularities’, while their social reality is increasingly oriented towards the exceptional. This paradigm shift from industrial to late modernity results from socio-cultural and economic transformations. The article introduces the concept of ‘recognitive capital’ to analyse how these paradigm shifts give rise to new forms of social inequality and invisibility. We argue that late-modern individuals are increasingly engaged in attempts to accumulate social recognition, which fuels their projects of individual self-realisation. Correspondingly, we suggest that forms of social inequality can be analysed following a similar model: socially underprivileged individuals suffer from social invisibility and thus lack recognitive capital.
Thomas Carlyle’s knowledge of ancient Chinese literature and political thought, specifically Confucianism, helped shape his political view of heroes and meritocracy. His view of ‘ good government’ might have inspired, in a reverse way, John Stuart Mill’s political philosophy of ‘representative government’, which somewhat converged with Carlyle’s idea of meritocracy by integrating bureaucracy with democracy in government. Carlyle’s advocation of meritocracy in the past finds an echo in contemporary China’s ‘vertical democratic meritocracy’ or rather ‘China Model’. An investigation of the Western political theories raised by Joseph Schumpeter and Daniel Bell as well as the political proposals upheld by some Chinese Neo-Confucianists demonstrates that the traditional dichotomy of meritocracy vs democracy could be problematic under the complicated circumstances of contemporary China. The exercise of ‘selection plus election’ as a model of democratic meritocracy in the mainland of China seems arguably practicable in spite of its many potential problems such as legitimacy of election, abuse of power and vulnerability to corruption.
Confucian meritocrats argue that moral education should not aim to make people politically active because doing so is not only inconsistent with the underlying assumptions of Confucian virtue ethics, but it is likely to make people more adversary and uncivil. According to Confucian meritocrats, moral education should aim at inculcating a particular set of virtues that are directly conducive to political meritocracy such as deference, dependence and paternalistic gratitude, or what I call ‘passive virtues’. This paper argues that unless public purposes are set clearly by the people themselves, it is impossible to know ex ante what sorts of character traits are to be considered good. The virtuous circle between active and virtuous citizenship and effective and virtuous political leadership is possible only when the regime is democratic, facilitating the extension of the self to the wider political world predicated on public purposes that bind all to one political community.
