"CONSCIOUSNESS" AS AN ECOLOGICAL NOTION
Arguments are given against the common approach to the problem of cognition and consciousness from the rationalist perspective of external realism which cannot escape the epistemological trap of language. Emphasis is laid on Vernadsky’s insightful idea that the inseparability of a living organism and its environment must be taken into account; this idea is being fruitfully developed in the biologically orientated cognitive science that views language and consciousness as ecological phenomena.