Consciousness as a cultivated faculty that develops according to social and historical conditions

Abstract The articles in this issue of the journal support the claim that consciousness is a circumstantially cultivated faculty of the self. This is contrary to a widespread assumption held by numerous scholars, researchers, and religious doctrines that consciousness is a self‐sustaining unoriginated faculty given to the subject and which at all times is subjectively experienced with wholeness. The articles in this issue counter the belief that consciousness exists in a state of independence from societal, personal, and historical circumstances.