MICHEL FOUCAULT, info.

bradley nitins schreef:

> Dear All,
> The notion of 'common sense' fascinates me. Although, historically it 
> has on occasion been employed as part of anti-establishment critique 
> (Thomas Paine's (in)famous "Common Sense" published in the late 18th C 
> springs to mind), it seems to me that it can be more often associated 
> with the vital principals of conservative Christian morality. Perhaps 
> this is all too obvious to most of us, perhaps it is just 'common 
> sense' (though a 'common sense' which is not often pulled into the 
> spotlight of consciousness, rather one that forms a large part of the 
> backdrop, the unspoken assumptions and taken-for-granted ideologies, 
> the 'historical apriori', of Western evaluation), however perhaps 
> today the Christian roots of 'common sense' lay too often in 
> analytical darkness. Comparatively our Western 'secular society' no 
> longer clings as affectionately and as proudly to Christian codes of 
> belief as did, generally, the English high-Victorian period. 'Common 
> sense' here has moved into and filled the ideological vacuum, 
> especially in relation to the political domain. Although it could be 
> argued that even during the Victorian period the nature of the 
> universalized code of 'respectability', to which the attribute of 
> 'common-sense' was an essential element, was sometimes more 'secular' 
> than religious, the general assertion that 'respectability' and 
> 'common-sense' turned on the fundamental tenets of a Christian 
> morality is hard to dispute. I say this, as part of 'a history of the 
> present', to remind us that today when we judge  and condemn someone 
> on the basis of 'common-sense' that we are often not making a 
> universal 'rational' decision, one to which any 'objective' inquirer 
> would nod their assent, but are simply reinforcing the historical 
> ascendency of the fundamental principles of Christian evaluation.
> all the best
> Bradley Nitins
> University of Queensland    

I suspect the roots of the concept are earlier. In French the expression 
is 'du bon sense', which I would translate as 'good judgement'. In Dutch 
it is 'gezond verstand',  sound judgement. I wonder if the expression 
has anything to do with the Aristotelian 'sensis communis' the sixth 
sense, which coordinates the impressions coming from the other five. 
Common sense is valued much higher in analytical philosophy then in 
other styles. I think this has something to do with the English view on 
life, although I'm not sure what.

erik


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