Abstract

This paper reexamines Stebbing's and Moore’s views about common sense. I first draw on overlooked textual evidence to argue that Moore’s common sense views are far less monolithic than has been traditionally assumed. I use this to show that Stebbing and Moore were largely aligned with respect to the extent to which the truths of common sense may be philosophically analyzed. I then develop an alternative reading of Stebbing’s common sense program, which I argue is decidedly distinct from Moore’s. For Stebbing, unlike Moore, science and common sense form a unity. I trace how this idea is developed across several of her works, culminating in her view that commonsense knowledge constitutes a form of probable knowledge.