french term for consciousness?

Question

nietsche, kant, mallarme, all referenced this term

was used by fin-de-siecle era philosophers and poets. kant, sartre, and others may have used it. may not be french, used in english, but definitely not originating in english

Answer 1

You're going to have to be a bit more precise. The French words for consciousness and sentience are conscience and sensibilité, respectively. Esprit de corps, perhaps?

BTW Nietzsche wrote his works in German. The only "catch-word" I recall from him is the ubermench, or superman. But then, it has been a while....

Answer 2

I think you may be thinking about the "cogito"... it's Latin though, not French. But I know for a fact that Nietsche as well as Kant used this term (I didn't studys Mallarme's philosophy so I don't know if he used the term)

Cogito, in a way, could be translated as consciousness because it refers to the "i think" or ego. It is from the phrase "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am), the main theme of Rene Descartes' Meditations.

Answer 3

Since one answered already and addressed the common term in French -- perhaps your question addresses these words that not so much stem from French as from professionals studying this:

Here is a Wikipedia quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego
"The Id, Ego, and Super-Ego are the divisions of the psyche according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's "structural theory."