Cognitive is the one who knows or who can know . He cognitive subject , therefore, it is he who performs the act of knowledge . This concept is developed by various branches of the philosophy .
The individual's belonging to the reality he knows and the characteristics of it are a matter of debate for the epistemology . It is often discussed whether the reality accessed by the subject is the true reality, a part of it or a reality built by the person.
Some philosophical currents maintain that the cognitive being does not have access to reality, but can only perceive a phenomenon or a manifestation of it. He positivism , for example, states that the cognitive subject is out of reality, knowledge being an extraction of content from it. He constructivism On the other hand, he believes that the cognitive individual generates his own reality, so it is not external.
In general it can be said that the cognitive subject interacts permanently with reality to generate some kind of knowledge that allows it to adapt to the environment. He psychic apparatus The person is composed of different cognitive systems organized as logical structures.
The person, therefore, bases his actions on his own thoughts. The thoughts they arise from the cognitive fact, which is the fruit of man's interaction with reality.
By becoming a cognitive subject (who has knowledge), the human being is free because he can decide what to do according to his thinking. This does not mean, of course, that knowledge is exempt from social interactions.
The allegory of the cave
Plato had an extremely interesting vision about the access that the cognitive subject has to knowledge and reality; held that the human being can only know the shadows of reality, which is in the so-called World of Ideas. In his allegory of the cave, a very crude point of view is narrated about our relationship with wisdom and truth, and his words are dangerously valid.
The narrative begins by presenting four men who were chained at the bottom of a cave from birth, with chains that hold their limbs and necks so that they cannot turn their heads and look in a direction that is not towards the wall. Behind them and just before the entrance of the cave is a bonfire, which casts shadows in the field of view of the prisoners.
The shadows show the silhouettes of people who pass freely carrying various objects, and the chained men have no more information about them that their monochrome and trembling representation on the wall at the bottom of the cave. They have never seen the skin of a human being, nor the materials of their utensils or the fiber of their clothing. They have never felt sunlight on their faces, nor enjoyed a full moon night. They have only seen shadows and do not believe there is anything else.
What would happen if one of the men was released and forced to leave the cave, to contemplate all that until then he did not know? For Plato assured that he would discover a reality belonging to the intelligible world, which can be reached only through reason, while until then he had access to the sensible, which can be known through the senses. As a cognitive subject, I would incorporate new data that would serve to support the known until then (the shadows).
Plato concludes by ensuring that if the liberated man entered the cave again to tell his experience to his former companions and offered to go with him, he would receive teasing and end up being killed by them, who would prefer to stay with the shadows that cradled them.
