The Idea of "Common Sense" Revisited

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K02232
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Aesthetics and studies on art
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Otabe Tanehisa 東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 教授 (80211142)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 共通感覚 / 美学 / 感性論 / 感性論的転回

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have been experiencing an "aisthetic turn" of aesthetics which focuses neither on our artistic experience or creation, nor on the idea of beauty, but on the aisthesis’s role in our aesthetic appreciation, or rather on our aisthetetic consciousness of our being. The purpose of this research is to revise the idea of "common sense" of Aristotle and Kant, aiming at reorganizing and reanimating their insights and thereby contributing to an "aisthetic turn" of aesthetics.
Based on commonly held beliefs, there are two strands in the idea of "common sense": the Aristotelian idea of something intra-subjective and the Ciceronian idea of something inter-subjective Kant’s concept of common sense is regarded as belonging to the second strand. In contrast to such beliefs, I argue as follows: first, that in Aristotle there is already a productive germ of the second vein and, second, that Kant’s aesthetics succeeds prominently Aristotelean concept of common sense.

Free Research Field

美学芸術学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

すでに日本において共通感覚論は、哲学者の中村雄二郎、精神病理学者の木村敏らによって、独自な展開を遂げたが、本研究は美学的な視点から共通感覚に新たな視点を提起した。その成果の一部は、『美学』（東京大学出版会、2020年）という一般書（とりわけ第六章）のうちに示し、研究の社会的還元を行うとともに、学術的には The Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology の特集号 The Unconscioius の編集をとおして国際発信した。