[Xmca-l] Re: In defense of Vygotsky ["Sense and meaning" really means consciousness, which really means intellectualism]

[Martin John Packer]

Hi Annalisa,

In Germany the social sciences are still known today as the "Geisteswissenschaften," and what would be called in English 'philosophy of mind' is "Philosophie des Geistes."  

The root of English "consciousness" is the Latin "conscire," ‘to be privy to,' so its components are consc-ious-ness, not con-scio-usness.

The word that LSV uses that is generally translated as 'consciousness' is "soznanie." Back in 2007 there was a discussion here of that term. "Mind in Society" was an edited compilation of LSV's texts, and so the title was not his. 

Martin

On Oct 28, 2014, at 11:40 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Andy seems to have a good story of how "consciousness" came into usage and that this usage is from the German. Seems like a reasonable explanation. Given that Freud and other prominent psychologists were German, as was Marx and various other muscular philosophers of the 19th Century, it makes sense. Regardless of how engrained it is, for me, it doesn't seem like a good use of the word, but that is me. I'm not attempting to change anyone's consciousness on that. Just because mind means "spirit" in German, seems like a bad reason to give up using "mind" in English. It's almost as if "mind" has become a profanity.