[xmca] The notion of consciousness as con-scientia

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Mike

You mentioned that 2 more articles have now been posted for discussion. I
went to the "papers for Discussion" to find John Shotter's article and the
last entry was 2010.  Is there another place that the article is posted on
the website?  I was wondering what others thought about his interpretation
of one type of consciousness as con-scientia. His explanation that word
meaning as a unit is both a generalizing activity and a means of social
exchange or expression. Shotter in the article quotes Toulmin [1982] on page
5 of the article.

Etymologically, of course, the term "consciousness" is a knowledge word.
This is evidenced by the Latin form -SCI - in the middle of the word. But
what are we to make of the prefix -CON - that precedes it?  Look at the
usage in Roman Law, and the answer will be easy enough. Two or more agents
who act jointly - having formed a common intention, framed a shared plan,
and concerted their actions - are as a result CONSCIENTES. They act as they
do knowing one another's plans: they are JOINTLY KNOWING.

John has taken this notion of con-scientia as a particular type of knowing
that he calls "witnessable knowing along with others". It is the exploration
of the formation of witnessable
knowing as distinct from representational knowing that John writes about in
his article. Do others agree with John's interpretation of Vygotsky also
writing about BOTH types of knowing.  Do others share John's passion for
understanding this form of knowing and suggesting that Vygotsky also was
writing on this theme?
John interprets Vygotsky's notion of "affective-volitional tendencies" as
pointing to a form of consciousness or knowing as "con-scientia"  John's
project seems to  be to instruct us on the centrality of this form of
knowing within language use. Word meaning, as a microcosm of human
consciousness, from John's perspective is BOTH generalizing and expressive
movements [motivation] of calling and responsivity to the call.

Larry
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