Cognitive Progress as Directional Movement

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.