08:34 Jan 28 

Merlinva convinced me, after I re-read her discussion. I have posted a new answer (because the other one is now so old). I'm still sticking with 'felt needs'.

10:52 Jan 27 

Yes, I understood that to be how you were interpreting it. As I said in an earlier comment, I am very doubtful whether "sentido" can be used like that, and consequently do not believe the author is using it like that, though I may be wrong.

10:42 Jan 27 

I understand "sentido" to mean 'that which is felt'- rather than a noun referring to a thing, such as 'sense'. It's generic and doesn't necessarily imply 'needs', so it doesn't have to agree with "necesidades" in the grammatical sense. How else could this be expressed in English. BTW, I thought of using 'satisfiers''because of the challenge of the rest of the phrase. As for the objection to 'products', I don't know what else is produced that meets needs except products. I'll be interested if anyone comes up with a better solution.

09:23 Jan 27 

If you want to delete one of your answers, you can do so by clicking on the button marked "Hide answer" (in the English version) at the very bottom of the answer box. You have to give a reason, which can be anything you like. The answer then remains visible to you but not to others. It is permanently hidden; you cannot reverse the process afterwards.

06:13 Jan 27 

Hi David, just thinking that if might be useful to one sentence before and one after the paragraph you posted, to see if the author explains further the meaning.

05:59 Jan 27 

How do I delete my first entry?
Sorry Muriel but I disagree because some authors consciously avoid the term "needs" your term "products", implies some kind of production, but a satisfier could have been something not produced as such.
"Satisfiers" is a technical term used in economics, development, and consumption theory. You can find definitions in almost any article on "Human Scale Development" . Regarding the term "needs" if the author of the text in questions would have wanted to use it, it would be there as it is part of an established "chunk of meaning", i.e. "wants and needs" or "satisfactores y necesidades" or " satisfactores y necesidades sentidas" but the author did not write any of that. In my opinion, the author purposely wanted to depart form the term "needs" , it happens specially when writers are trying to develop new theories or approaches, they depart from established language and adventure into new linguistic territories.
Something important to notice is that if the author would have written "sentidos" as to imply felt needs, or "necesidades sentidas", the word would have been "sentidas" to coordinate the gender case as "necesidades" is femenine in Spanis

02:31 Jan 27 

"El sentir de la comunidad" is the way the community feels, and "felt needs" is not too remote from that, but I don't think you could express this as "los sentidos de la comunidad", any more than you could replace "los sentimientos" with "los sentidos".

00:40 Jan 27 

I've discovered an example at Linguee of English "felt needs of the community" and the Spanish equivalent "el sentir de la comunidad".
http://www.linguee.com/english-spanish/search?query=felt nee...

00:34 Jan 27 

Y'know, I actually deleted my answer, thought about it, and then reposted it. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was an appropriate solution.

09:33 Jan 26 

Thanks. Yes, a very stimulating discussion!
I don’t dislike Marxian thought. I was only disputing that the objects of production and consumption are necessarily material. But as I say, I don’t think that’s worth arguing about.
Your new answer (“motives”) and Muriel’s answer (“felt needs”) both seem to interpret “sentidos” as denoting that which the satisfiers satisfy, so the writer is essentially saying that needs and the satisfaction of needs perpetuate each other in an endless cycle of production and consumption. This is a very attractive reading, because it fits the context well. But I find it hard to see how “sentidos” can bear this meaning. I haven’t yet seen any evidence of it being used in this special sense elsewhere. If it is established usage, you would expect to find “satisfactores" and "sentidos” used like this in other texts, but you don’t. If it is a personal coinage, it is a very strange one, because there are other more obvious ways he could have expressed the same idea. In theory “sentidos” could mean “things felt”, and perhaps it does, but I have never seen it used like that. For me, the fact that it fits the context is not enough to overcome this difficulty.

03:53 Jan 26 

Dear Charles,
As I said, "meaning" is a good attempt but does not comprehend the idea of the text its the social and philosophical context. Here, the word "dialectics" is a milestone, showing that posthegelian, more precisely, Marx analysis is part of the picture. Additional keywords are the terms production, consumption, human nature, individual and collective. These clearly show that it is a text on philosophy, economic anthropology, social or political theory or the theoretical section of a work from development studies or similar. For me they are clearly mapping the text, but those signposts are not seen by everybody, it depends on the codes provided by our academic disciplines to decipher the world.
It is about theories of consumption and de creation of subjectivity and identity in the world of goods. ( look at Mary Douglas, Danny Miller, Sahlins and others as you do not like the Marx's political economy).
I think that I have found the appropriate terms, which I posted as another answer. Thank you for the opportunity to have such an interesting and stimulating exchange. I hope you have enjoyed it. Buenas noches.

23:44 Jan 25 

I am sorry, but I cannot agree that only material things can be produced and consumed, whatever Marxians may say (or may once have said), and I think it is absolutely certain that "satisfactores y sentidos" does not refer only to material things here. "Satisfactores", by most definitions, including the one you quote in your answer, includes non-material things, and "sentidos" can only refer to something non-material; none of the possible meanings of "sentido" is material.

However, the question of materiality is a red herring. The question is what does "sentidos" mean here.

It cannot, in principle, mean sensations or emotional feelings. It is not a synonym of "sensaciones" or "sentimientos". The noun "sentido" can mean a faculty of perception or sensation (as in los cinco sentidos), or a rational faculty (as in sentido común), or a direction, but it can't mean any of these things here; none of them can be objects of production or consumption. So I think "sentidos" has to mean "meanings" here, because no other possible meaning of "sentidos" makes any sense in this context. That doesn't mean "meanings" has to be the translation, but that is the idea we have to express.

20:12 Jan 25 

19:52 Jan 25 

Hi, it is an interesting discussion. It seems that I cannot reply to your reply further down, so I will do it here.
My comment was
"Sorry, Charles, meanings sounds very well but I disagree. There might be a better term. It reduces the meaning of "sentidos" to something just mental or conceptual while "sentidos" has an actual material and sensorial meaning, it is both mind and matter."
Your reply:
"Well, I'm not sure "meanings" does sound very well, but I am sure that this is what "sentidos" means here. Of course the word "sentido" can mean other things, but I really don't agree that it is sensorial here, and I don't think it can be material at all."
I disagree, besides the word game going on here there are some important philosophical connotations. It has to be something material as we are talking about production, and this is related to Marxian theories on production, the market and commodities. Production is always related to matter, to actual transformation and interaction with the actual world. That was one of the basis of neohegelians like Marx's critique of idealist philosophy. It is not mind that makes life but the material conditions of life (& production) make the mind.

19:46 Jan 25 

It is important to bear in mind that "sentidos" refers to something that is produced and consumed. Not every possible meaning of the word "sentido" will fulfil this condition.

19:38 Jan 25 

Hi Emiliano, I am afraid it has nothing to do with "resentimiento" or "consumer satisfaction as such.That paragraph sounds like a text on the anthropology or sociology of consumption or political/social theory. Probably related to the construction of subjectivity in capitalist societies.

02:21 Jan 25 

Hello. I agree with Charles Davis about "satisfactores". Regarding how to translate "sentidos" it is a more complex issue. In my opinion, probably "sense" is the closest. The author here is playing with multiple meanings, which are: 1. "sentidos" as senses, or the sensorial aspect of consumption; 2. sentidos as feelings, perhaps as if consumers consume some kind of feelings or feeling are produced by the act of consuming. 3. "Sentidos" as something making sense, have a logical cause or reason to happen. The issue here is to identify what is the empahsis given by the author, if the sensorial aspect, the emotional aspect or the logical or rational aspect. If there is an English word combining the three aspects, that is the one required. To me, sense is probably the one closer to the Spanish meaning.

22:47 Jan 24 

"Satisfactores", I find, are called "satisfiers" in sociological jargon. It means things that people consume to satisfy their needs or desires. But at the moment I can't for the life of me see what "sentidos" means.