FROM THE PRIMORDIAL NEED TO THE DIFFERENTIATED REQUEST: FROM THE “SOCIAL SENSE” TO “SOCIAL FEELING”

Abstract

Francesco Parenti and Pier Luigi Pagani have favoured, in their first works, the expression “social sense” on the locution, later become usual “social feeling”. The author wonders which are the reasons that could have induced, during the first years of the Individual Psychology in Italy, to correct the locution “social sense” into “social feeling”, reaching the conclusion that the two terms, both the original and the current, are, at the same time, right and wrong. A linguistic approach with the two terms may help us to clear up the semantic difference between “sense” and “feeling”, allowing us to make an appropriate use of them, in accordance with their meaning of use. The word “sense” indicates predisposition for feeling, realizing, perceiving impressions, referring to, mostly, facts or phenomenon of mental order. The term “feeling” refers to each affective condition of conscience, positive or negative, to each subjective motion of the nature which gives our feelings, representations and ideas a particular affective tonality