1st c. BC
Cicero
Republican civic spirit — whoever judges, judges in the awareness of a shared political world.
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and the more steadily reflection is occupied with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason), AA 5:161 (our translation).The term sensus communis means far more than “common sense” — it denotes a capacity for judging together.
Republican civic spirit — whoever judges, judges in the awareness of a shared political world.
A historically shared sense, at work in customs, language, institutions and ways of life.
The capacity to put oneself in thought in the place of others — the enlarged way of thinking.
“The equality is false equality!”
WorkProblems of Women’s Liberation
“In the cultural and the political realm, that is, in the whole sphere of public life, what matters is neither knowledge nor truth, but judging and deciding: the judicious appraisal and discussion of the common world, and the decision about how it is to look from now on and in what manner one is to act in it.”
(KP, 300; our translation)
“The sense that founds community” — tact, education, a feel for the situation, moral orientation.
“A borderland is a vague and undetermined place.”
WorkBorderlands / La Frontera
“Without knowing the other’s ‘world,’ one does not know the other.”
WorkPlayfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception
“If women’s rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Koran nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition.”
WorkThe Veil and the Male Elite
The public sphere as a medium of mutual understanding — judgement in the reasoned exchange among citizens.
WorkFaktizität und Geltung (Between Facts and Norms)
“There can be no peace without equitable development.”
WorkNobel Lecture, 2004
Sensus communis is not only a capacity for judging together in exchange, but above all a responsibility that is lived.
“World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.”
“Europe is the great hope of our century.”
“Democracy lives on compromise. Anyone who is incapable of compromise is of no use to democracy.”
“Reconciliation means working together to correct the legacy of past injustice.”
“History will judge us not by what we say in this moment in time, but by what we do next.”
“What one cannot achieve alone, many can.”
“Self-help, self-responsibility, self-governance.”
“The power of a theory is exactly proportional to the diversity of situations it can explain.”
“Poverty is not created by poor people.”
“The business of business should not just be about money, it should be about responsibility.”