Consciousness is the highest intellectual ability of a person, which is manifested in the ability to consciously act in the world, find the value orientations of their
being and creatively transform their own existence. Consciousness is also a philosophical concept, correlated with the process of knowledge, the result of which is the possession of knowledge. Modern science describes consciousness, building on the factors of human mental activity: feelings, intentions, creative ideas, and thoughts. Thus, consciousness appears as a phenomenon that mirror the variety of the spiritual world of man. The axiological meaning of consciousness is expressed through such concepts as “subjective reality”, as a manifestation of the forms of the “ideal”, in the diversity of which the value attitude of
a person to the world is reflected, their will and purposefulness are manifested. This aspect of consideration brings the problems of consciousness closer to the issues of sociology, where consciousness — social consciousness appears as a natural aspiration of a person to exist in society, in a social environment, in a historically formed culture. Modern philosophy is characterized by a variety of concepts of consciousness developed within the framework of existing and non-competing philosophical trends: philosophy of life, existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, philosophy of language, etc. Pre-understanding
as a phenomenon of consciousness is associated with what precedes the clarity of our understanding (language, speech, gesture, image, text). Pre-understanding accompanies cognitive activity and is an important component of the interpretation process. Thus, the problems of pre-understanding can be considered in hermeneutic, phenomenological and sociological contexts. It is these aspects of the problem that this article is devoted to.
For citation:
Shulga E.N. Pre-understanding as a phenomenon of consciousness, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2023, iss. 3, pp. 153—162.