The nature and historicity of the concept of consciousness

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Descartes is said to be the first to use the Latin word "conscientia" in a psychological sense, such as awareness or consciousness, but the word had already been used before him in such a sense. Descartes' pivotal role in the history of the concept of consciousness rather consists in his applying the term to a inner realm discovered by him, in which, he finds, things are as they are independently of the external world.One instance where Descartes suggests this new way of thinking using the term conscientia is his discussion of the phenomenon "our perceiving that we see" (de ipso sensu sive conscientia vivendi). The same sort of phenomenon is elucidated by Aristotle in an opposite way from Descartes: the second order recognition of one's activity is involved intrinsically in the perception of the external world. Descartes broke this Aristotelian unity between our inner activity and its external objects, and the Cartesian concept of consciousness is a historical product of this break.