consolidated

13:42 Jun 11, 2020 

for your help!
I also tend to think that "established" could work in this context, because later on the author uses the adjective "common" referring to these same descriptions:
*********
For these reasons, it seemed that staying at the level of these descriptions
of mental life was not enough for any of the fields in which I worked, including
mental health, education, and developmental research. Something more
seemed to be needed for us to move our work forward. It seemed important
to move beyond *** these common descriptions ***, even as condensed and useful as
these three facets may be, to find a fourth facet that might serve as a definition.

13:39 Jun 11, 2020 

That's a circular argument Mark, and I don't really get what your point is, are you just highlighting that we've interpreted it differently?

Plus that's exactly what I'm trying to say; I don't think it is "consolidate" as in "combine" (that's your interpretation), but rather as in "make stronger", ergo my interpretation and answer ("established"). And the circle is complete. ;@)

12:24 Jun 11, 2020 

The statement that knowledge is well-established involves no connotation of consolidation, where consolidate means to combine, aggregate, bring together, which IMHO, is the meaning here, although it does work where consolidate means to make stronger and more certain.

12:15 Jun 11, 2020 

I think you could argue that if the subject of these two definitions was "knowledge", then they would strongly overlap; "consolidated knowledge", "well-established knowledge". That's why I suggested "well-established".

to consolidate: to make or become stronger or more stable
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/consolidate

to establish: to cause to be accepted or recognized
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/established

11:41 Jun 11, 2020 

The suggested meanings are unequivocally correct meanings of "consolidated". Based on an overall read of the text, I wonder if the writer might have been looking for a word that meant "summarized" (as in, "these first three facets of mind are 'compacted' descriptions...") or "established" (as in, "these first three facets of minds are descriptions that have served as firm grounding or foundations...") when they selected "consolidated". I place this in the discussion as a consideration but not an option as these two interpretations are not accurate meanings of "consolidated".