Unstupiding Ourselves - Part 2

Recovering quantitative and qualitative authority—common sense

---

Sensus Communis

What holds a community, a culture, a society, or a nation together—something Haidt also implies in his essay referenced in part 1 of this series—is a common set of human sensibilities. A fabulous rudimentary example of this can be seen in the Homeric Epics where the various tribes living on the Mediterranean coasts shared a common religion and language despite not having—at least officially—a common government. In Book 2 of The Iliad Homer recounts something like 1182 ships belonging to various tribes who shared in the burden of judging violations of the guest-host relationship (xenia). This episode is where we get the common pithy phrase depicting Helen’s supernatural beauty—the face that launched a thousand ships.

In the medieval period, this notion of a common sensibility was referred to as the sensus communis, or what we today call common sense. But given its now casual modern usage, “common sense” is an expression that needs further definition.

The Latin root of sensus communis carries with it the idea of consensus or consent. It is that which is generally believed, admitted and held to be true. In this respect, its authority is quantitative. As André Gushurst Moore points out, common sense or sensus communis “derives from the overwhelming number of persons, or nations, who hold to, or have held, a particular creed or doctrine or opinion.”