From Suggestion to Consciousness
The paper deals with the problem of evolutional emergence of consciousness. It bases on the theory of the outstanding Soviet anthropologist B.F. Porshnev. But this remarkable theory is now being essentially reconstructed. The fi rst step of the reconstruction is the analysis of what Porshnev calls suggestion. Suggestion is interpreted widely, as every kind of nonverbal communication. The analysis demonstrates that to provide complex acting, the suggestion must be interiorized. The interiorization of suggestion, in turn, leads to the emergence of refl ection. The second step of the reconstruction is the analysis of what Porshnev calls counter-suggestion. The author's effort here is to make clear how counter-suggestion leads to the emergence of individual thinking. At the third step, human speech is analyzed with the help of K. Poppper's ideas, including the concept of the Self as a mediator between the fi rst and the third worlds. The concept of a mediator then helps understand how the Self acts in complex communication. It comes clear that the Self emerges together with logical thinking. But the Self has to struggle from suggestion that bounds it. All this leads to the phenomenon of the atomization of the Self, which is the essential feature of the current moment. Finally, the problem of relations between refl ection and logical thinking is investigated.