Conscience and Consciousness

Despite being virtually identical etymologically, 'Consciousness' and 'Conscience' have very different meanings, and the studies of them have been in striking contrast. While both are mental phenomena, Consciousness pertains to cognition, while Conscience is implicated in Morality, a drastic difference, given the chasm usually held to obtain between Fact and Value. Furthermore, volumes in Philosophy, as well as in related disciplines, are dedicated to Consciousness, while Conscience is rarely to be found as an explicit topic. Still, the latter is implicated in some of the most profound philosophical theories, which are challenged to explain how a most private phenomenon such as Conscience can have such transpersonal import. Hence, notably, Plato theorizes thatIdeas, such as that of the Good, are innate, but obscured in a person until they are 'recollected'. Analogously, Kant offers his 'Categorical Imperative' as an innate voice of Reason, while for Heidegger, Conscience is the 'call of Being', and Freud has his 'Super-Ego'. One naturalistic explanation of Conscience reduces Consciousness to it--Mead shows how the latter is fundamentally a personal internalization of Society, and, hence, even in its cognitive operations, still essentially normative. One shortcoming of this theory is that it fails to account for the absolutely private kinaesthetic processes that constitute Consciousness in its most primitive form. Still, Mead's efforts do more fruitfully suggest how the structure of Conscience can illuminate that of Consciousness. The former, in any of its theories, can be understood as the influence of the social totality on a particular person, experienced as constraint and coordination. Consciousness can be somewhat analogously conceived--synthesis by the whole person of the activities of its various parts, as for example, advance by Kant's 'Transcendental Unity of Apperception'. However, such a notion is restricted by the usual presumption that Consciousness is fundamentally cognitive. Instead, once it is accepted that it is fundamentally homeostatic, then its analogy to Conscience, as a constraint on and coordinator of the manifold of organic activity, is drawn more precisely.