Abstract

The "intrapersonal together sense" is one of several meanings of the English words conscious and consciousness. C.S. Lewis identified the intrapersonal together sense as analogous to the "interpersonal sense" of these same words: a sense that goes back, too, to ancient times, millennia before the two words entered the English language. Whereas the interpersonal sense of consciousness picks out a certain kind of relation that exists, has existed, or will exist between two or a few people, the intrapersonal together sense refers to a process instantiated wholly by a single person yet analogous to that particular interpersonal relation. In addition to the interpersonal sense and the intrapersonal together sense, this article distinguishes the related concept of "consciousness in the guilty sense": which has reference to a subcategory of consciousness in the intrapersonal together sense. A person conscious in the guilty sense has come to judge that he or she has committed or is committing now a legal or moral transgression &emdash; this kind of consciousness turning into an application of "conscience" insofar as the judgment passed involves moral self-condemnation and produces feelings of guilt. All of the above are mutually similar kinds of consciousness and they are cases of "awareness-with." However, although simple awareness-with is one of their crucial ingredients, they are each more complex than the kind of awareness-with that consists of no more than undergoing inner, direct awareness of one's states of consciousness