Il senso comune come 'teoria' e come 'limite'

The paper focuses on the notion of “common sense” drawing a distinction between two very different ways of interpreting its meaning and its role in epistemology, on the basis of a broader personal research program. Considering both some aspects of contemporary cognitive research and of philosophical investigation (mainly in relation to W.F. Sellars), common sense seems to correspond to an image of man and the world which is alternative or even antagonist to the scientific image. The common sense image could then be interpreted like an empirical theory, in the sense that there is matter of truth and error concerning it and that, if recognized as false, it might have to be rejected, similarly to what happens with explicit theories. The present contribution, on the basis of a broader personal research program, aims at critically showing some problems related to the previous point of view. A different approach is consequently explored, with partial reference to the connotations of common sense as • the faculty of perceiving the common sensibles (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas), • the foundation of all our operating with language (L. Wittgenstein). The concluding purpose of the paper is to support the idea that common sense could be interpreted as a boundary for our linguistic games and for all our thinking and knowing and even acting, related to our perceptive and epistemic structure. From this point of view, to understand common sense is equivalent to reaching the extreme borders of a space inside which we - as human beings with a specific perceptive and epistemic configuration - build our theoretical constructions, science included.