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On the Levels of Awareness

Man  is  the  being  who  is the being who (1)  feelsfeels;   (2)  thinks  thinks (or  believesbelieves):; and (3)  thinks  that  he  thinks  (or  believes  that  he  believesthinks that he thinks (or believes that he believes).  (2)  is is what may be called called "existential  understanding"  which  as  such  is  constitutive of  the  very  being  of  man, who  is understanding" which as such is constitutive of the very being of man, who is precisely the being who understands himself  and and therewith understands reality itself. This   This existential  un­derstanding  may understanding may be either authentic or inauthentic--but in either case it involves an understanding of self, others, and the whole.  Inauthen­tic  understanding understanding is an understanding which in one way or another qual­ifies the  sola  in  sola  gratia sola in sola gratia, i.e., treats self and/or others  as  sig­nificant as sig­nificant or of  worth worth independently of the relation to the whole which alone endows them with worth. Even   Even so, inauthentic understanding is understanding of self, others, and the whole, however distorted or per­verted, or, as it were, eccentric it may be. Since   Since existential under­standing is identical with  the  human  mode  of  being-is  the  distinctively human  way  of  existing-  it  is  instantiated  somehow  in  every  distinctively human act, either- as  manthe human mode of being--is the distinctively human way of existing--it is instantiated somehow in every distinctively human act, either as authentic or inauthentic; and this choice is the ever-present decision, the truly eschatological decision, at stake in every moment of human existence.  Although it is not itself feeling, but understanding, it is the level of understanding closest to feeling, and is the proximate relation of man to the concrete: it is, one may say, man’s way--as man, that is as the being who thinks as well as feels--of  being  concrete. But  if,  as  seems  reasonable,  "human  consciousness is  essentially  But if, as seems reasonable, "human consciousness is essentially linguistic,"  ii.e.,  man  precisely  at  level  man precisely at level (2),  at  the level  of  existential  understandingat the level of existential understanding. . . .

"The  doctrine  of  degrees  of  consciousness"  eBB,  213), doctrine of degrees of consciousness" (BH, 213).