Cognition in different modes

The Phenomenology of meaning

Cognitive theory is a process of examining our experience and its meaning in order to identify the cognitive operations we carry out to establish such meaning. Meaning is always established, in part or whole, via cognitive acts. Although the default operation for most cognitive theory is conception, we can see that there are other operations behind the meaning we experience. In perception, for example, we can identify at least two distinct operations. The first, conception, is the process of establishing the categorical meaning of things. Experiencing this object as a table requires, in part, identifying a general category, table, to apply to the thing. The definition, when applied, provides its categorical meaning as a table.

The second operation has no clear name in cognitive theory. It is the process of specifying something about a thing. It occurs, for example, when we use our hand to touch something else, seeking to identify the thing’s texture. We say that the coat is rough. This meaning, now established, is not categorical or definitional. It is a specific, not general meaning. Instead of connecting the coat to a general category “coat” we have “zoomed in” on it, identifying something about its specific character. It is rough.

These are two cognitive acts bringing greater meaning to things we perceive, but they have an entirely different cognitive structure and function. In Kantian terms, we can call the first a determinative act and the second reflective. The first employs the definition of things in the manner of a rule. The operation is the application of this rule to experience. Since we have this definition, we can use it to determine what kind of thing the thing is. The second operation has no clear rule determining it. We cannot say, "If I have a hand, the coat will be rough," or "If my hand possesses a certain structure, the coat will be rough." Rules are abstract, hands are concrete. And touching a coat requires a hand. In the operation of touching, it is a concrete thing (hands, skin) that serves as a norm or standard of thought, whereas in conceptual thought this function is reserved for the abstract. What is a concrete norm?

We theorists have not explored in sufficient detail the cognitive structure and function of such non-conceptual cognition. We have taken it for granted and overlooked it in favor of conceptual thought. When we have noticed it, as in the case of metaphorical cognition, we have insisted on treating it as a conceptual operation. This is the central error of Conceptual metaphor Theory. But metaphor specifies things in our experience. It zooms in on them to characterize them more closely and finely, as the hand does with the coat. Metaphor does not categorize or generalize—in fact, it operates in precisely the opposite direction. What categories distinguish and separate, metaphor merges and blends. This it its most distinguishing trait—metaphor is an operation of conflation. We think of one thing as another, ignoring all categorical boundaries to establish a different kind of meaning, the specific character of things.

 Copyright © Tim Adamson, 2026. All Rights Reserved. Please do not distribute without the author’s permission.