Common sense earned praise historically as anti-authoritarian empiricism but now has less intrinsic merit

Evidence

In what exactly does the merit of what is normally termed “common sense” or “good sense” consist? Not just in the fact that, if only implicitly, common sense applies the principle of causality, but in the much more limited fact that in a whole range of judgments common sense identifies the exact cause, simple and to hand, and does not let itself be distracted by fancy quibbles and pseudo-profound, pseudo-scientific metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. It was natural that “common sense” should have been exalted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when there was a reaction against the principle of authority represented by Aristotle and the Bible. It was discovered indeed that in “common sense” there was a certain measure of “experimentalism” and direct observation of reality, though empirical and limited. Even today, when a similar state of affairs exists, we find the same favourable judgment on common sense, although the situation has in fact changed and the “common sense” of today has a much more limited intrinsic merit. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1247

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes common sense/good sense from mere causality by identifying simple exact causes resistant to metaphysical obfuscation.
• XREF: Sets up Gramsci’s later distinction between common sense as fragmented folklore and good sense as critical elaboration, foundational for hegemony theory.