Discursive Cognition
Discursive Cognition
(Lat. discurrere, to run about) Discursive, as opposed to intuitive cognition, is attained by a series of inferences rather than by direct insight. See Intuitive Cognition. — L.W.
Contrasted with Intuitive, and applied to knowledge; also to transitions of thought. Our knowledge of, e.g., the nature of time, is discursive or conceptual if we are able to state what time is; otherwise it is only intuitive. Transitions of thought mediated by verbal or conceptual steps would be called discursive and said to be “reasoning”. Immediate transitions, or transitions mediated in subconscious ways, would be called intuitive. — C.J.D.