|
Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people and can reasonably be expected of nearly all people without any need for debate.〔''Merriam-Webster'' gives: "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts". (), Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as, "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way".(), Cambridge Dictionaries Online. say that "common sense consists of knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument". C.S. wrote that what common sense "often means" is "the elementary mental outfit of the normal man".〕 The everyday understanding of what common sense is derives from philosophical discussion, involving several European languages. Related terms in other languages include Latin ''ラテン語:sensus communis'', Greek (''koinē aísthēsis''), and French ''フランス語:bon sens'', but these are not straightforward translations in all contexts. Similarly in English, there are different shades of meaning, implying more or less education and wisdom: "good sense" is sometimes seen as equivalent to "common sense", and sometimes not.〔For example, Thomas Reid contrasted common sense and good sense to some extent. See , page 340.〕 "Common sense" has at least two specifically philosophical meanings. One is a capability of the animal soul (Greek ''psukhē'') proposed by Aristotle, which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive the characteristics of physical things such as movement and size, which all physical things have in different combinations, allowing people and other animals to distinguish and identify physical things. This common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human rational thinking, but cooperates with both. The second special use of the term is Roman-influenced and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.〔The ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' of 1973 gives 4 meanings of "common sense": (1) An archaic meaning is "An internal sense which was regarded as the common bond or centre of the five senses"; (2) "Ordinary, normal, or average understanding" without which a man would be "foolish or insane" (3) "The general sense of mankind, or of a community" (two sub-meanings of this are good sound practical sense and general sagacity) (4) A philosophical meaning, the "faculty of primary truths".〕 Just like the everyday meaning, both of these refer to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge which most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why. All these meanings of "common sense", including the everyday one, are inter-connected in a complex history and have evolved during important political and philosophical debates in modern western civilisation, notably concerning science, politics and economics.〔See the body of this article concerning (for example) Descartes, Hobbes, Adam Smith, and so on. Thomas Paine's pamphlet named ''"Common Sense"'' was an influential publishing success during the period leading up to the American revolution.〕 The interplay between the meanings has come to be particularly notable in English, as opposed to other western European languages, and the English term has become international.〔See for example , page 282; ; and : "today the Anglo-Saxon concept prevails almost everywhere".〕 In modern times the term "common sense" has frequently been used for rhetorical effect, sometimes pejorative, and sometimes appealed to positively, as an authority. It can be negatively equated to vulgar prejudice and superstition, or on the contrary it is often positively contrasted to them as a standard for good taste and as the source of the most basic axioms needed for science and logic. This began with Descartes' criticism of it, and what came to be known as the dispute between "rationalism" and "empiricism". In the opening line of one his most famous books, ''Discourse on Method'', Descartes established the most common modern meaning, and its controversies, when he stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (''bon sens''), but it is rarely used well. Therefore, a skeptical logical method described by Descartes needs to be followed and common sense should not be overly relied upon.〔 Part I of the ''Discourse on Method''. NOTE: The term in French is "''bon sens''" sometimes translated as "good sense". The opening lines in English translation read: "Good Sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing Truth from Error, which is properly what is called Good Sense or Reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of Reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it."〕 In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for modern thinking. It was contrasted to metaphysics, which was, like Cartesianism, associated with the ''ancien régime''. Thomas Paine's polemical pamphlet ''Common Sense'' (1776) has been described as the most influential political pamphlet of the 18th century, affecting both the American and French revolutions.〔 Today, the concept of common sense, and how it should best be used, remains linked to many of the most perennial topics in epistemology and ethics, with special focus often directed at the philosophy of the modern social sciences. ==Aristotelian common sense== The origin of the term is in the works of Aristotle. The most well-known such case is ''De Anima'' Book III, chapter 2, especially at line 425a27.〔There are other places in the works of Aristotle uses the same two words together: ''De Anima'' III.7 431b, ''De memoria et reminiscentia'' 1450a, ''De Partibus Animalium'' IV.10 686a, ''Metaphysics'' I.1 981b, ''Historia Animalium'' I.3 489a. See .〕 The passage is about how the animal mind converts raw sense perceptions from the five specialized sense perceptions, into perceptions of real things moving and changing, which can be thought about. According to Aristotle's understanding of perception, each of the five senses perceives one type of "perceptible" or "sensible" which is specific (Greek: ''idia'') to it. For example, sight can see colour. But Aristotle was explaining how the animal mind, not just the human mind, links and categorizes different tastes, colours, feelings, smells and sounds in order to perceive real things in terms of the "common sensibles" (or "common perceptibles"). In this discussion "common" (''koinos'') is a term opposed to specific or particular (''idia''). The Greek for these common sensibles is ''ta koina'', which means shared or common things, and examples include the oneness of each thing, with its specific shape and size and so on, and the change or movement of each thing.〔Aristotle lists change, shape, magnitude, number and unity, but he notes that we perceive shape, magnitude, and rest by first being able to perceive change or movement (Greek uses one word for both: ''kinēsis''), and number is perceived by perceiving a lack of unity. (''De Anima'' 425a16, just before the famous mention of "common sense".) As explains, Aristotle is talking about what Robert Boyle and John Locke referred to as "primary qualities" (not to be confused with Aristotle's use of the term "primary qualities"). Plato is not so clear. In the equivalent passage in Plato's ''Theaetetus'' 185c-d, he talks about what is ''common'' in all things, and in specific things, and by which we say that things for example "are" versus "are not"; are "similar" versus "disimilar"; are the "same" versus being "different"; being one or a higher number; odd or even.〕 Distinct combinations of these properties are ''common'' to all perceived things.〔These "common sensibles" or ''koina'' are in other words one Platonic-Aristotelian version of what are today called "universals", although it should be noted that Aristotle distinguishes the ''koina'' perceived by common sense, from the forms or ideas seen by the ''nous''. See for example .〕 In this passage, Aristotle explained that concerning these ''koina'' (such as movement) we already have a sense, a "common sense" or sense of the common things (Greek: ''koinē aisthēsis''), which does not work by accident (Greek: ''kata sumbebēkos''). And there is no specific (''idia'') sense perception for movement and other ''koina'', because then we would not perceive the ''koina'' at all, except by accident. As examples of perceiving by accident Aristotle mentions using the specific sense perception vision on its own to see that something is sweet, or to recognize a friend by their distinctive color. explains that "when I see Socrates, it is not insofar as he is Socrates that he is visible to my eye, but rather because he is coloured". So the normal five individual senses do sense the common perceptibles according to Aristotle (and Plato), but it is not something they necessarily interpret correctly on their own. Aristotle proposes that the reason for having several senses is in fact that it increases the chances that we can distinguish and recognize things correctly, and not just occasionally or by accident.〔''De Anima'' line 425a47, just after the famous mention of "common sense".〕 Each sense is used to identify distinctions, such as sight identifying the difference between black and white, but, says Aristotle, all animals with perception must have "some one thing" which can distinguish black from sweet.〔''De Anima'' column 427a. Plato, in his ''Theaetatus'' 185a-c uses the question of how to judge if sound or colour are salty.〕 The common sense is where this comparison happens, and this must occur by comparing impressions (or symbols or markers; Greek: ''sēmeion'') of what the specialist senses have perceived. The common sense is therefore also where a type of consciousness originates, "for it makes us aware of having sensations at all". And it receives physical picture imprints from the imaginative faculty, which are then memories that can be recollected.〔 The discussion was apparently intended to improve upon the account of Aristotle's friend and teacher Plato in his Socratic dialogue, the ''Theaetetus''.〔Approximately (185a )-(187a ).〕 But Plato's dialogue presented an argument that recognizing ''koina'' is an active thinking process which happens in the rational part of the human soul, making the senses instruments of the thinking part of man. Plato's Socrates says this kind of thinking is not a kind of sense at all. Aristotle, trying to give a more general account of the souls of all animals, not just humans, moved the act of perception out of the rational thinking soul into this ''sensus communis'', which is something like a sense, and something like thinking, but not rational. The passage is difficult to interpret and there is little consensus about many of the details.〔, Introduction.〕 has argued that this may be because Aristotle did not use the term as a standardized technical term at all. For example, in some passages in his works, Aristotle seems to use the term to refer to the individual sense perceptions simply being common to all people, or common to various types of animals. There is also difficulty with trying to determine whether the common sense is truly separable from the individual sense perceptions and from imagination, in anything other than a conceptual way as a capability. Aristotle never fully spells out the relationship between the common sense and the imaginative faculty ("''phantasia''"), although the two clearly work together in animals, and not only humans, for example in order to enable a perception of time. They may even be the same.〔 Despite hints by Aristotle himself that they were united, early commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Al-Farabi felt they were distinct, but later, Avicenna emphasized the link, influencing future authors including Christian philosophers.〔〔, page 389.〕 argues that Aristotle used the term "common sense" both to discuss the individual senses when these act as a unity, which Gregorić calls "the perceptual capacity of the soul", or the higher level "sensory capacity of the soul" which represents the senses and the imagination working as a unity. According to Gregorić, there appears to have been a standardization of the term ''koinē aisthēsis'' as a term for the perceptual capacity (not the higher level sensory capacity) which occurred by the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias at the latest. Aristotle's understanding of the soul (Greek ''psyche'') has an extra level of complexity in the form of the ''nous'' or "intellect" which is something only humans have, and which enables humans to perceive things in a different way to other animals. It works with images coming from the common sense and imagination, using reasoning (Greek ''logos'') as well as the "active intellect". It is the ''nous'' which identifies the true forms of things, while the common sense identifies shared aspects of things. Although scholars have varying interpretations of the details, Aristotle's "common sense" was in any case not rational, in the sense that it implied no ability to explain the perception. Reason or rationality (''logos'') exists only in man according to Aristotle, and yet some animals can perceive "common perceptibles" such as change and shape, and some even have imagination according to Aristotle. Animals with imagination come closest to having something like reasoning and ''nous''.〔''Posterior Analytics'' II.19.〕 Plato, on the other hand was apparently willing to allow that animals could have some level of thought, meaning that he did not have to explain their sometimes complex behavior with a strict division between high-level perception processing and the human-like thinking such as being able to form opinions.〔, pages 5-6.〕 Gregorić additionally argues that Aristotle can be interpreted as using the verbs, ''phronein'' and ''noein'', to distinguish two types of thinking or awareness, one being found in animals, and the other unique to humans and involving reason.〔, Part II, chapter 3, which concerns a passage in ''De Partibus Animalium'' IV, but also refers to other passages in the corpus. See footnote 28.〕 Therefore, in Aristotle (and the medieval Aristotelians) the universals which are used in identifying and categorising things are divided into two. In medieval terminology these are the ''species sensibilis'' which are used for perception and imagination in animals, and the ''species intelligibilis'' or apprehendable forms used in the human intellect or ''nous''. Aristotle also occasionally called the ''koinē aisthēsis'' (or one version of it), the ''prōton aisthētikon'', the first of the senses. (According to Gregorić this is specifically in contexts where it refers to the higher order common sense which includes imagination.) Later philosophers developing this line of thought, such as Themistius, Galen, and Al-Farabi, called it the ''ruler'' of the senses or ruling sense, apparently a metaphor developed from a section of Plato's ''Timaeus'' (70b).〔 Augustine and some of the Arab writers, also called it the "inner sense".〔 The concept of the inner senses, plural, was further developed in the Middle Ages. Under the influence of the great Persian philosophers Al-Farabi and Avicenna, several inner senses came to be listed. "Thomas Aquinas and John of Jandun recognized four internal senses: the common sense, imagination, ''vis cogitativa'', and memory. Avicenna, followed by Robert Grosseteste, Albert the Great, and Roger Bacon, argued for five internal senses: the common sense, imagination, fantasy, ''vis aestimativa'', and memory."〔, page 10. The "cogitative" or "estimative" capacity, ''vis aestimativa'', "enables the animal to extract vital information about its environment from the form processed by the common sense and imagination."〕 By the time of Descartes and Hobbes, in the 1600s, the inner senses had been standardized to "five wits", which complimented the more well-known five "external" senses.〔, page 42.〕 Under this medieval scheme the common sense was understood to be seated not in the heart, as Aristotle had thought, but in the anterior Galenic ventricle of the brain. The great anatomist Andreas Vesalius however found no connections between the anterior ventricle and the sensory nerves, leading to speculation about other parts of the brain into the 1600s.〔, page 11. See below concerning Descartes.〕 writes that "In different ways the philosophers of medieval Latin and Arabic tradition, from Al-Farabi to Avicenna, Averroës, Albert, and Thomas, found in the ''De Anima'' and the ''Parva Naturalia'' the scattered elements of a coherent doctrine of the "central" faculty of the sensuous soul."〔, page 36.〕 It was "one of the most successful and resilient of Aristotelian notions."〔, page 12.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Common sense」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|