The paper is an introduction to the study of the concept of conscience in Western Philosophy, especially in the Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. In almost the whole History of Philosophy, conscience is primarily taken as an intellectual function, with no bodily constitution, enabling human beings to achieve true knowledge. Merleau-Ponty proposes a new concept of conscience, in which the realities of cogito and the body are taken as an unit.
Conscience; Body; Phenomenology
