Simplistically1, the mental processes by which knowledge and understanding are gained. For our purposes, cognition can involve either reasoning 2, intuition3, or a bit of both.
The concept of cognition roughly corresponds to military concepts of “Situational Awareness” and “Situational Understanding”.
Along with affection4 and conation5, cognition is one of the three ways humans are sometimes construed as gathering information in support of making decisions. See also the Extended Verification Methods.
Footnotes- The Philosophy Department would spend all day on this definition. Every day. Until the end of time. And then beg for more time.[↩]
- “let me explain why I knew it was the right thing to do”[↩]
- “I knew that would work…I just can’t explain why”[↩]
- ”it felt good at the time”[↩]
- “I did it on purpose, but I don’t know why”[↩]