Behind the “I”: Conscience and Consciousness

Abstract

This paper intents to study the concepts CONSCIOUSNESS and CONSCIENCE from a linguistic point of view and identify their notional components. Concepts CONSCIENCE and CONSCIOUSNESS are topical nowadays. It is verified by the overwhelming interest in them among linguists, physicists, philosophers, psychologists, etc.; based on the current human advances in AI (artificial intelligence) and dissatisfaction with the dualistic separation of mind and body. Conscience and consciousness govern our decision-making process. The concepts CONSCIENCE and CONSCIOUSNESS are multifaceted and complex. The concept CONSCIENCE is commonly used in its moral sense, implies the inherent ability of any healthy human being to perceive principles of the right and wrong, the good and bad; the ability to control, monitor, evaluate and execute their actions. Principles of decency, integrity, fairness, honesty, kindness and probity are the components of conscience. The voice of conscience might suggest different principles of behavior to different groups of people. Conscience can be considered as an empty container that can be filled with any type of moral and ethical content. Human CONSCIOUSNESS is the greatest mystery in the world of all times and peoples. People know a lot about consciousness from their own life experience and could claim that their own conscious life experience is what they do not call into question. One has no idea what consciousness is about, what makes one conscious, why ‘people have consciousness’, compared to other living beings or if other creatures, besides human beings, also have consciousness. Consciousness is mainly equated with the wakefulness. This perspective of consciousness puts forward that consciousness is an all-encompassing state, a sort of a switch that illuminates the entire mental life of a being. Consciousness appears before conscience: in order for conscience to arise, it is necessary for consciousness to arise as a background or a screen on which all the phenomena, states and objects can arise. In order for a person to realize what is good and bad, to appeal to a set of moral and ethical standards, consciousness is necessary first. Thus, consciousness acts as a background for conscience. The concepts of CONSCIENCE and CONSCIOUSNESS are intersecting for several reasons. Both lexemes-names of the concepts were synonymous until the eighteenth century. Both concepts are the building blocks of the self-identification with the concept CONSCIENCE being the prerequisite for the ability to shape moral judgements. These basic universal concepts are of equally high significance, mutually dependent and intersecting, and cannot be considered without their internal interconnection.