H. P. Grice on "sensus communis" -- "the least common of the senses, fortunately!"

SENSUS COMMUNIS -- common sense Epistemology The natural and ordinary beliefs that are taken for granted by people independent of philosophical training. While rationalistic philosophy often starts by challenging and rejecting common sense, there is a kind of philosophy that argues that the general consent that exists regarding the views of common sense offers justification for accepting them in preference to skeptical or revisionary doctrines. Historically, Thomas Reid, the main figure in the Scottish school of common sense, argued with great subtlety against Hume’s skepticism and his associated theory of ideas. G. E. Moore, the leading defender of common sense in the last century, claims in his famous paper “A Defense of Common Sense” that a philosopher’s common sense convictions are more certain that any of the arguments purporting to establish skepticism. Another meaning of common sense, initiated by Aristotle (Greek, koine aisthesis), refers to a faculty that integrates the data from the five specialized senses. This meaning is accepted by the scholastics and also elaborated in the philosophy of Descartes. Kant adapted the Aristotelian notion to form an account of common sense as reflective, public, and critical, in contrast to what he saw as Reid’s vulgar account of common sense. “Both common sense and physics supplement precepts by the assumption that things do not cease to exist when unperceived.” Russell, Human Knowledge -- common sense morality Ethics Pre-theoretical moral convictions, held by ordinary people. Its value in ethics has been a subject of dispute. While some philosophers, such as Plato and Aquinas, believe that ordinary morality must be subject to theoretical examination and guidance, others, such as Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, those in the British moral sense tradition, moral intuitionists, Rawls and applied ethical theorists, believe that an adequate ethics must lie primarily in systematizing our common sense moral judgments. If the conclusions derived from a moral theory deeply conflict with common sense, the theory itself must be defective. Common sense morality denies that we need moral experts to guide our daily life, but it must combat moral relativism and can face a demand to provide a criterion to test the adequacy of common sense moral beliefs. “I submit that analogous to this internal common sense of law there is an internal common sense of morality which every rational morality ought to respect.” Cooper, The Diversity of Moral Thinking common sense psychology, another term for folk psychology commonwealth Political philosophy In a broad sense, a commonwealth contrasts with the state of nature and is identical with a civil state or civitas. In a narrow sense, it is government, in particular democratic government. Both Hobbes and Locke endorsed the broad sense. A commonwealth as a civil state is formed when people in a state of nature consent to give up some of their rights and powers in exchange for the protection of other rights and powers. It is generally believed that in a commonwealth people can live in a peaceful and orderly manner. A commonwealth must have some form of government, that is, some system of subjection and obedience. In this regard, it is different from a community in which there is no system of subjection. Both Hobbes and Locke held that a commonwealth should be one coherent living body. Among the various forms of governments a commonwealth might have, Hobbes preferred monarchy, while Locke proposed democracy.