"Preparing a Place for Understanding": Cognition System Theory as Method

Philosophy of understanding is the art of "being at that place", that is, of standing at the point where an observable reality, whether a material object, a social phenomenon, or a mental construct, is "prepared" to be cognised, to be understood. The knowing subject – researcher, scientist, or thinker – is "gifted" the capacity to be "there" without effort, simply by shifting position from "here" to "there", while remaining aware of these positions as "structures of understanding". In this sense, the capacity of individual consciousness to assume a "stranger's" observer position appears "naturally volitive".

Yet the history of philosophical thought over the last two millennia shows that comparatively few thinkers have been such "natural observers" – those we might call "true philosophers": individuals free, or nearly free, of "physio-psycho-socio" conditioning, capable of genuinely philosophical thought and of dwelling within "a cleared space for understanding". The great majority of those who attempt to think are occupied, in parallel, with understanding their own position before they can even begin to observe the entity in question. As is well known, every process of understanding is a confluence of influences; absent reflection on this confluence, the knowing subject's position remains obscure, and the intended entity cannot be disentangled from the subject's own preferences (subjectivity), contextual predispositions and empirical residue (objectivity), and paradigmatic frameworks (meta-knowledge). There are, of course, knowing subjects who do not trouble themselves with this problem at all, and simply devote themselves to what they most enjoy: "calculating and writing".

Our conversation, however, does not concern these effortlessly gifted minds, capable of a "quantum leap" into an already prepared and cleared position of observation, but it concerns those still in search of a methodology, a "method", for clearing a space for understanding. For only under the condition of "entering" – or more precisely, of the good fortune of being granted access to "a cleared space" – can the understanding of the "ontic unity of reality" be initiated as an object of understanding.

This proposal continues the discussion of cognition theory opened in the first part of this conference. Here, we turn to a case application of cognition system theory as method to the problem of "clearing a space for understanding", sharing our own praxis in confronting this problem. From this praxis, we will turn to a broader discussion, inviting the community to reflect on how they themselves encounter and challenge this problem in their own practice.