A History of Common Sense in the Age of Reason
Sophia A Rosenfeld
Department of History
My book project takes up a subject which, by definition, should be resistant to scholarly explication. That subject is common sense. What this study will explore is the invention, evolution in meaning and application, and implications for modernity of this generally taken-for-granted conceptual category. More specifically, the project will trace how the ancient notion of a "common" sense-an intuitive, postsensory but prerational moral, aesthetic and cognitive faculty ostensibly common to all humans-was transformed in the course of the long eighteenth century, in Britain, America and continental Europe, into the basis of a communitarian epistemology that ultimately helped undergird the development of modem democratic thought and practice.
More information at www.virginia.edu
Project Sponsored By: Mellon Foundation
Start Date: 4/1/2003
- End Date: 12/31/2006
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