Why Begin Here
Cognition is routinely treated as something that belongs to someone: a mind, an agent, a subject. Knowledge then appears as the possession of that subject, and understanding as an interior state.
This series begins by refusing that inheritance.
If cognition is approached semiotically, it is not an interior event but a distributed pattern of differentiation. It does not require a knower in order to occur. It requires only a field in which distinctions can be made, stabilised, and taken up.
This post establishes that claim, not polemically, but structurally.
Cognition as Differentiation
At its most basic, cognition is the production and maintenance of distinctions.
This, not that
Same, different
Relevant, irrelevant
Stable, unstable
Nothing in this list presupposes a subject.
Differentiation occurs wherever a semiotic field supports contrasts that can persist long enough to be re-entered. Cognition, on this view, is field-level patterning, not mental ownership.
What matters is not who recognises a difference, but whether the difference can be sustained.
Recognition Without Ownership
Recognition is often treated as an act: someone recognises something. But structurally, recognition is a successful re-entry of a distinction.
A distinction counts as recognised when:
it is reproducible
it can be invoked again
it constrains what follows
No interior awareness is required. Recognition is not a feeling or a moment of insight; it is stability across instances.
Once a distinction can be re-entered, it participates in cognition.
Understanding as Field Readiness
Understanding is typically described as a mental achievement. Here, it is treated as epistemic readiness distributed across a field.
A field understands something when:
distinctions are available
propositions can be formed
inferences can proceed without collapse
Understanding, in this sense, is not possessed. It is operational.
A textbook can “understand” a domain better than a person, not because it thinks, but because it stabilises distinctions reliably. A diagram can outperform an expert for the same reason.
Understanding is what the field can do, not what a subject feels.
The Disappearance of the Knower
Once cognition is treated as distributed differentiation, the knower quietly disappears.
This is not eliminativism. Nothing is denied.
Rather, the subject is revealed as one site among many where cognitive distinctions are taken up. It is not the origin of cognition, only one locus of its actualisation.
The field precedes the subject. The distinctions precede the act of knowing them.
Why This Matters for Epistemic Theory
Removing the subject has several consequences:
Knowledge is no longer private
Error is no longer moral
Ignorance is no longer a personal deficit
Saturation can be analysed structurally
Most importantly, cognition becomes compatible with persistence without comprehension. A system can continue to know in some sense even when no individual understands it.
This prepares the ground for propositions.
What Comes Next
Cognition alone does not yet yield truth, falsity, or claim-making. For that, differentiation must stabilise into propositional form.
The next post examines how something becomes sayable without intention:
From Cognition to PropositionHow epistemic differentiation acquires form without assertion
No comments:
Post a Comment