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It has been said repeatedly that Aristotle is the most common sense philosopher who has ever lived. This allegation seems to amount to two claims; first, there is such a thing as the peak of common sense, and second, that Aristotle came closest to it. This peak of common sense, or ideal common sense, or arch-common sense, or core, or epitome, or distillation of common sense - choose any metaphor you like - is what a philosopher will call the essence of commonsense. That it exists is the claim of Plato and Aristotle. In other words, the high praise of Aristotle comes from his own stable. Recently it has become a popular trend to find new ways to defend the idea of essentialism as strong common sense.¹ This, I fear, is not only objectionable on the ground that common sense is not the supreme court of reason; it is also objectionable on account of its circularity. For, in frequently observed and reported fact, there are varieties of common sense. We may, of course, appeal to the best common sense, to wit that sense which is common to myself and my peers, which is very appealing if I am Oxford or M.I.T.; but not if I am London School of Economics or Boston University. Even without belonging to the elite, I may still appeal to the best common sense: I may try to appeal to the universal essence of all common sense. (I shall talk of the universal later on.) It stands to reason, then, that in order to be able to appeal to the essence of common sense, I should postulate essentialism. But then, putting essentialism itself on the basis of such common sense will be rather circular.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-5788-9_1

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