The nature and historicity of the concept of consciousness

笛卡尔被认为是第一个在心理学意义上使用拉丁词“意识”的人，例如意识或意识，但这个词在他之前就已经在这种意义上使用了。笛卡尔在意识概念史上的关键作用在于他将这个术语应用于他所发现的一个内在领域，在这个领域中，他发现，事物是独立于外部世界的。笛卡尔使用意识一词提出这种新的思维方式的一个例子是他对“我们所看到的我们的感知”（de ipso sensu sive vivendi）现象的讨论。亚里士多德以与笛卡尔相反的方式阐明了同样的现象：对一个人的活动的第二层次认识内在地涉及对外部世界的感知。笛卡尔打破了我们的内在活动和外在对象之间的这种亚里士多德式的统一，笛卡尔的意识概念就是这种打破的历史产物。

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.