Etymology and Early History
The origin of the modern concept of consciousness is often attributed to John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690. Locke defined consciousness as "the perception of what passes in a man's own mind." His essay influenced the 18th century view of consciousness, and his definition appeared in Samuel Johnson's celebrated Dictionary (1755).
The earliest English language uses of "conscious" and "consciousness" date back, however, to the 1500s. The English word "conscious" originally derived from the Latin conscius (con- "together" + scire "to know"), but the Latin word did not have the same meaning as our word—it meant knowing with, in other words having joint or common knowledge with another. There were, however, many occurrences in Latin writings of the phrase conscius sibi, which translates literally as "knowing with oneself", or in other words sharing knowledge with oneself about something. This phrase had the figurative meaning of knowing that one knows, as the modern English word "conscious" does. In its earliest uses in the 1500s, the English word "conscious" retained the meaning of the Latin conscius. For example Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan wrote: "Where two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be Conscious of it one to another." The Latin phrase conscius sibi, whose meaning was more closely related to the current concept of consciousness, was rendered in English as "conscious to oneself" or "conscious unto oneself". For example, Archbishop Ussher wrote in 1613 of "being so conscious unto myself of my great weakness". Locke's definition from 1690 illustrates that a gradual shift in meaning had taken place.
A related word was conscientia, which primarily means moral conscience. In the literal sense, "conscientia" means knowledge-with, that is, shared knowledge. The word first appears in Latin juridical texts by writers such as Cicero. Here, conscientia is the knowledge that a witness has of the deed of someone else. René Descartes (1596–1650) is generally taken to be the first philosopher to use "conscientia" in a way that does not fit this traditional meaning. Descartes used "conscientia" the way modern speakers would use "conscience." In Search after Truth he says "conscience or internal testimony" (conscientia vel interno testimonio).
Read more about this topic: Consciousness
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