Gramsci’s Consideration on Common Sense

Abstract

  The purpose of this paper is to examine Gramsci’s theory of common sense in his Prison Notebooks. The paper first seeks to explain the reason why Gramsci insists that every idea is“philosophy”including vulgar common sense. The second is to survey Gramsci’s definitions of common sense through Notebooks. The third concerns the relationships among common sense, science, philosophy, good sense and folklore. The fourth examines the significance of idea of common sense in his Prison Notebooks. The fifth is to verify close relationship between common sense and the conception of hegemony. In these years Gramsci’s idea of common sense attracts many European Gramscian students to re-read Prison Notebooks through the idea. Following Gramscian students in Europe, for example Guido Liguori and Fabio Frosini, I would like to show how important the idea of common sense in his Prison Notebooks is.