This is John Patrick conferring with the author, Arthur Herman, his book about the Scottish

Enlightenment and the term common sense used routinely here in the 21st century.

What is it? Where does it come from? What did Scotland intend by talking about common sense?

How do we use it? Relationships is the answer. Here,

Arthur explains much more of this. And in coming weeks, Arthur and I will speak at length of his book

about the Scottish Enlightenment published many years ago, but very useful to refer to whenever we get

into a situation where we're thinking up strange things

that don't make common sense.

Like, all right, some would say tariffs.

Here's Arthur.

I don't think anybody's going to argue that we're not a common sense called people, Arthur.

Well, you know, there was a debate on this very point about how much common sense do we

have because, after all, our perceptions differ as individuals. And if we go to a figure

you'll know, John, although I don't think he's talked about very much outside of people pursuing a PhD in philosophy.

Someone like Bishop Barclay might have a very different view about the issue of common sense

and the way in which we come to understand the world.

But the point is that the Scots, and particularly the influence of Thomas Reed,

who taught at the University of Aberdeen,

was that every human being comes equipped with a basic set of ways to understand the world that are shared by all human beings and that allow us to make the similar judgments

about how we interact with others,

how we interact with the world,

with the issue of what is right, what is wrong,

...