Towards a “common” definition of common sense
“Common sense” is a surprisingly often-cited concept, which has been employed in
innumerable settings. For example, in Paine’s (1776) seminal work entitled Common
Sense Paine argued for the American colony’s independence from the monarchy of
England yet nowhere in his commentary on the plight of the colonies was common
sense defined. Common sense was inferred from the logic that he employed in order to
convince fellow colonists to separate from England. So what then is common sense?
In a philosophical context the expression (common sense) has had a number of meanings. For
the Romans, common sense meant the vulgar opinions of mankind. For Thomas Aquinas it
was a technical expression for the unifying sense (“central” sense). For certain modern
philosophers it has meant a kind of “instinct” or “special feeling” for the truth (this seems to
be the doctrine held by Thomas Reid and the “Common Sense” Scottish school of thought)
(Dolhenty, n.d.).
Although outside the scope of this paper, common sense has been strongly linked to
philosophy and has played an integral role in the development of the Scottish School of
Common Sense (late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries) (Reed, 1996).
The most basic definition of common sense can be found in The American Heritage
Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) which defines common sense as “sound
practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like.”
Let us break down this definition into its component parts in order to better understand
exactly what is meant by common sense.