Antonio Gramsci: The Coherence Between Philosophy and Politics

For Gramsci, at the most basic level, ‘all men are “philosophers”’ precisely because of the ‘“spontaneous philosophy” which is proper to everybody’ (1971, 323). This spontaneous philosophy or ‘conception of the world’ (concezione del mundo) is found most obviously in the ways in which we describe the world, that is, through language. Shared descriptions between individuals constitute a ‘common sense’ (senso comune) that becomes sedimented in the form of the quasi-natural ‘facts’ and beliefs that guide our daily practices. Common sense helps bind a social formation together and gives individuals a ‘natural’ disposition with which to encounter the world.