LA IDEA DE SENTIDO COMÚN EN LA FILOSOFÍA DE GEORGE BERKELEY

Resumen

Severa! passages of the works Berkeley wrote in his youth can lead a reader into thinking common sense played a key role in the development of his philosophical position; but the fact remains that, although these passages always show him siding with those views that he considers clase to common sense, they do not clarify what he wants when he asks 
philosophers to drop metaphysical speculation and return to common sense, or when he argues his immaterialism is a philosophical doctrine that vindicates the thought of the common man. This paper is an attempt to clarify some of the issues surrounding the role common sense played in the development of Berkeley 's philosophy and, more particularly, to show the importance of this notion for the proper understanding of his works. The main claim of this paper is that, for Berkeley, the views philosophers have developed on the traditional issues of existence and knowledge and, particularly, those that have emerged from the notions of matter and abstract idea, unsettle the fundamental beliejs that guide the thinking of the common man. According to Berkeley, supposing the mind has the ability to grasp or frame abstract ideas, that ali knowledge is about such ideas, or that matter is the foundation of the reality of the world that is perceived through the senses, even though it does not contradict doctrines the common man takes for evident and obvious truths, insofar as these suppositions make it harder to understand the process by which a sensory experience is formed and the process by which that experience becomes knowledge, undermine those certainties that every man, outside the classrooms of philosophy, recognizes as valuable and essential for his interactions with the world.