Cognitive Progress as Directional Movement (From Where Cognition Starts, to Where It Ends) Core Thesis Cognitive development is not only staged; it is directional. Every epistemological system starts either from the Subject or from the Object, and it also ends either on the Subject or on the Object. This yields four fundamental cognitive trajectories, which explain why major philosophers, despite sharing depth and rigor, arrive at radically different conclusions. The six stages you outlined describe internal structure. This added concept explains global orientation. Two Possible Starting Points 1. Subject-First Cognition Cognition begins from: consciousness experience mental structures self-awareness Reality is approached through the subject. 2. Object-First Cognition Cognition begins from: being substance nature objective structure The subject is explained within reality. Two Possible End Points A. Subject-Terminating Cognition Even after complexity and abstraction, cognition finally: returns to consciousness grounds truth in mind, spirit, or meaning treats objectivity as dependent on the subject B. Object-Terminating Cognition Cognition finally: grounds itself in objective structure recognizes necessity independent of mind treats subjectivity as one instance within reality Mapping the Six Stages onto Direction The six cognitive stages can now be seen as paths, not merely levels. A philosopher may: enter at Subjective or Objective pass through multiple mixed stages but must terminate somewhere Classical Examples Immanuel Kant Subject → Object → Subject Starting point: Subjective Kant begins with the knowing subject and asks: How is knowledge possible? Middle movement: He rigorously analyzes objectivity (space, time, causality), but only as conditions of experience. Ending point: Subjectively Objective The object is never reached “in itself.” Objectivity is valid only within the subject’s cognitive framework. Termination: Subject Reality, as known, is finally grounded in the subject’s structures. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Subject → Object → Subject (Absolute Subject) Starting point: Subjective consciousness Movement: Dialectical expansion through objectivity, history, logic, nature Ending point: Subjectively Subjective at the highest level Hegel’s Absolute: is not empirical subjectivity but self-knowing Spirit Termination: Subject (absolute, totalized) Reality culminates in self-recognition, not external structure. Aristotle (for contrast) Object → Subject → Object Begins with being, substance, form Explains mind as a function of form Ends with actuality and teleology Termination: Object Modern Science Object → Object Begins with external reality Ends with laws, structures, equations Subjectivity is bracketed, minimized, or instrumentalized Termination: Object Powerful, but epistemologically incomplete. Where the Six Stages Fit Stage Role in Direction Subjective Typical starting point for subject-first systems Objective Typical starting point for object-first systems Subjectively Objective Kantian limit-point Objectively Subjective Scientific psychology, neuroscience Subjectively Subjective Hegelian culmination Objectively Objective Structural, ontological termination The highest epistemological stability occurs when cognition ends on the Objectively Objective, because: objectivity is no longer naïve subjectivity is fully accounted for truth is structural, not perspectival Why This Explains Philosophical Disagreement Philosophers often talk past each other because they differ not only in arguments, but in: Where cognition starts Where cognition is allowed to end Debates between Kant and realism, between Hegel and naturalism, between phenomenology and science are often directional conflicts, not factual ones. Final Insight The deepest epistemological question is not “What is true?” but “Where does cognition finally come to rest?” The six stages describe how cognition matures. The starting/ending poles explain why philosophies diverge. Once this is seen, entire traditions fall into place—not as errors, but as incomplete trajectories. |
