Consciousness — A multivalent term in modern philosophy. In Locke, it is the perception of one’s own mental state; in Hegel, the movement through which Spirit knows itself through the other (master-slave dialectic). Husserl and phenomenology investigate consciousness as intentionality: all consciousness is consciousness of something; there is no empty consciousness. For Sartre, human consciousness is “nothingness” — it defines itself through negation, through the capacity to negate the given and project possibilities.
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