To fully appreciate the rhetoric put forth in Common Sense, it is crucial to comprehend the historical and philosophical elements that comprise the pamphlet's setting. Paine wrote and distributed Common Sense between the years 1775 and 1776, a time of great civil unrest amongst British colonists living in the Americas. Though many different factors contributed to the Revolutionary War and American independence, Common Sense is often cited among the seminal political texts published during the revolutionary time period that incited anti-monarchists to act.
It is also important to situate Common Sense and its rhetoric within the philosophical conventions and tradition of Enlightenment thought. Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, this intellectual movement brought to the fore questions of reason, emotion, science, and religious faith. Politics, literature, and philosophy— as well as art in visual media—reflected this change in the intellectual landscape, in which reason and rationality became privileged above other forms of intellectual attainment. Those who espoused Enlightenment values viewed the exercise of reason as a means to attaining happiness and prosperity. Common Sense must be understood in the historical context of the Enlightenment, as it undoubtedly influenced both Paine's writing and its interpretation by readers.
