Any epoch’s philosophy is an ensemble including common sense, not a single system

Evidence

One of the reasons, and perhaps the most important, for the reduction of historical materialism to traditional metaphysical materialism is to be looked for in the fact that historical materialism could not but be a mainly critical and polemical phase of philosophy, while there was a need for an achieved and perfected system. But achieved and perfected systems are always the work of single philosophers, and in them, side by side with the historically relevant part, the part, that is, which corresponds to contemporary conditions of life, there always exists an abstract part, which is “ahistorical” in the sense that it is tied to preceding philosophies and corresponds to external pedantic necessities of the architecture of the system or is due to personal idiosyncracies. Therefore the philosophy of an epoch cannot be any systematic tendency or individual system. It is the ensemble of all individual philosophies and philosophical tendencies, plus scientific opinions, religion and common sense. Can a system of this type be created artificially? And if so, by individuals or by groups? Critical activity is the only kind possible, particularly in the sense of posing and resolving critically the problems that present themselves as an expression of historical development. But the first problem which has to be formulated and understood is this: that the new philosophy cannot coincide with any past system, under whatever name. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1614

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s core definition of a ‘philosophy of an epoch’ as an ensemble of tendencies, sciences, religion, and common sense — foundational for his later treatment of hegemony and common sense.
• XREF: This distinction between system and critical activity connects directly to Gramsci’s later concept of organic intellectuals and to Foucault’s later genealogy as critical work rather than system-building.