Rational Cognition

Through abstract thinking, the human processes, arranges and generalizes perceptual knowledge materials to form the knowledge about the totality, the essence and the internal relations of things. It is characterized by abstract generality, and its content is a reflection of the essence of things.

Rational knowledge includes three forms, namely, conception, judgement and inference.

Conception is the generalization and reflection of the common characteristics and essential attributes of the same things. It is the most basic form of thinking and the cell of thinking. For example, family, society, country and nation are some basic concepts.

Other forms of rational knowledge are also formed and developed in the process of combination and deepening of concepts.

Judgement is the reflection of the nature of things and the relationship between things, and the discernment and determination of what things are or are not and whether they have certain attributes or relationships. Judgement is an expanded concept. Inference is formally expressed as the relation between concepts and sense perceptions, and it logically deduces the unknown form from the nature or relationship of known things.

Rational cognition is the advanced stage of cognition development and it based on perceptual knowledge.