cognition
(kɒgˈnɪʃən)
In 5–6 -icio(u)n, -ycyo(u)n.
[ad. L. cognitiōn-em a getting to know, acquaintance, notion, knowledge, etc., n. of action f. L. cognit-, ppl. stem of cognōscĕre: see cognosce.]
† 1. a. The action or faculty of knowing; knowledge, consciousness; acquaintance with a subject. Obs. exc. as in 2.
| 1447 O. Bokenham Seyntys (1835) 154 Illumynyd she is wyth clere cognycyoun In hyr soule. 1528 Lyndesay Dream 577 Filicitie they had Inuariabyll, And of his Godhed cleir cognitioun. 1604 T. Wright Passions v. 237 With conscience and perfit cognition of innocencie. 1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. ii. 63, I will not be my selfe, nor haue cognition Of what I feele. 1682 Sir T. Browne Chr. Mor. (1756) 106 A retrograde cognition of times past. 1796 Burney Mem. Metastasio II. 389 Tasting the first aliments of scientific cognition. |
b. Apprehension, perception. (nonce-use.)
| 1822 Lamb Elia Ser. i. iii. (1865) 34 In thy cognition of some poignant jest. |
2. Philos. a. The action or faculty of knowing taken in its widest sense, including sensation, perception, conception, etc., as distinguished from feeling and volition; also, more specifically, the action of cognizing an object in perception proper.
| 1651 Stanley Poems 231 This Divines call intellectual intuitive cognition. 1690 Locke Hum. Und. iv. iii. §6 Finding not Cognition within the natural Powers of Matter. 1847 Lewes Hist. Philos. (1867) I. Introd. 113 A faculty of cognition a priori. 1879 Adamson Philos. Kant 45 The several elements which, according to Kant, make up the organic unity of Perception or real Cognition. |
b. A product of such an action: a sensation, perception, notion, or higher intuition.
| 1819 Shelley Peter Bell III, 473 note, Peter's progenitor..seems to have possessed a ‘pure anticipated cognition’ of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity. 1856 Meiklejohn tr. Kant's Krit. P.R. 79 The fact that we do possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those of pure mathematics and general physics. 1873 H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. I. iii. viii. 369 With purely intellectual cognitions..also with..moral cognitions. 1881 J. H. Stirling Text-bk. Kant 468 Let a cognition be intellectually what it may, it is no cognition proper, it is not properly Knowledge, unless and until it have an actual perceptive application. |
c. attrib.
| 1878 S. H. Hodgson Philos. Reflection I. i. 68 Is not philosophy..just what the Germans mean by Cognition-theory (Erkenntnisstheorie)? Ibid. 69 A cognition-principle (Erkenntnissprincip) is opposed to a real-principle (Real-princip). Ibid. 230 Cognition that has a priori forms is already a cognition-faculty. 1909 Mind XVIII. 143 The ruin of the ordinary idealistic cognition-theory. |
3. a. Law. = cognizance 3. (Chiefly Sc.)
| 1523 in W. H. Turner Select Rec. Oxf. 35 Ye..Chauncellor..shall have..full cognition of all..causes. 1581 Savile Agric. (1622) 203 To the rest belonged cognition of criminal causes. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj. 12 Incontinent cognition or tryal sall be taken be the assise. 1689 tr. Buchanan's De Jure Regni 32 Obnoxious to the cognition of Judges. 1876 Grant Burgh Sch. Scotl. ii. v. 198 The Council appoint a Committee to take cognition of the matter. |
b. Sc. Law. † A process in the Court of Session for the determination of cases concerning disputed marches. cognition and sale: a process for obtaining a warrant to sell the whole or a part of a pupil's estate. cognition and sasine: a form of entering an heir in burgage tenure.
| a 1809 Scotch Dict. in Tomlins Law Dict., Cognition, is the process whereby molestation is determined. 1868 Act 31 & 32 Vict. c. 101 §46 An instrument of cognition and sasine in regard to such lands and in favour of such heir. |
† 4. Recognition; gratitude. Obs. rare.
| 1655 Evelyn Let. in Mem. (1807) IV. 7, I must justifie..with infinite cognition, the benefit I have received. |