Sensus communis
| Latin | Sensus communis |
|---|---|
| Treatise | Summa theologiae I, question 78, article 4 |
| Controlling authority | Catechism 362–368; Thomistic synthesis |
| Doctrinal standing | The unity of the sensing person is Catholic anthropology; common sense as first interior sense is school psychology |
| School | Thomism |
| Branch | Philosophical anthropology |
Sensus communis is the Thomistic name for the first interior sense, which receives, distinguishes, and assembles the proper sensibles of the exterior senses so that one animal, and one man, perceives a single sensed world.
Not proverbial good judgment
In ordinary speech, common sense means practical sanity. In Aquinas it names a power. Summa theologiae I, question 78, article 4, distinguishes the proper senses, which receive color, sound, odor, flavor, and the tangibles, from the common sense, which is appointed for the reception of sensible forms and for the distinction of one proper sensible from another. Sight does not hear. Something in us must know that this white and this sweet belong to one thing, and that seeing is not tasting.[1]
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on the soul reports this interior sense among the four: common sense, imagination, estimative or cogitative, and memory. The name is Aristotle's. The use is scholastic. It should not be confused with the later political sense of the term, or with the sensus fidei of the Church.[2]
Unity of the sensed object
Without a common sense, the man would be a committee of organs. With it, the proper sensibles are compared and the common sensibles—motion, rest, number, shape, size—are perceived. Imagination then stores the forms. The cogitative power reads individual intentions. Memory keeps them. The intellect abstracts. The whole chain begins in a power that is still a sense, not yet reason.
This is why Aquinas can say that the senses are not deceived about their proper objects, while error enters in the composition of the interior powers and in the judgment of reason. The common sense is the first place where a world, not a mere patch of color, is present to the animal.
Doctrine and school
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 362–368, teaches that man is a unity of body and soul and that the human person is one. That unity is doctrine. The assignment of a distinct interior power called sensus communis is Thomistic psychology. A Catholic may work with another account of sensory integration if he does not split the person or reduce thought to a sense.[3][4]
The school thesis serves the doctrine by showing how a bodily power can already unify experience before intellect. It is a servant. It is not a defined organ. Modern physiology studies the brain. Metaphysics of the soul asks what kind of power the operations require. The two questions are not the same, and neither replaces the Catechism.
Liturgy and the human act
Liturgy addresses the common sense when it joins sight, sound, scent, and touch in one rite. A sacrament is not an idea. It is a sign that reaches the soul through the body. The interior senses are the path. Catechesis that starves the senses, or that worships them, both miss the composite.
In moral life, the common sense is presupposed by any later collation of intentions. If the world is not first one, prudence cannot take counsel about this act. Formation of attention is therefore not a luxury. It is the beginning of a human act.
References
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 77 — Primary account of the powers of the soul in general, their distinction from the soul's essence, and their order.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 78, article 4 — Primary assignment of four interior sensitive powers: common sense, imagination, estimative or cogitative power, and memory.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 355–368 — Authoritative anthropology of the human person as a unity of body and soul, the soul as form of the body, and the soul's immediate creation and immortality.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Soul — Public-domain account of the soul, its faculties, and the Catholic doctrine of the human soul as substantial form.