The Major Cogniframes
A soul's disposition shows itself through an attitude.
A wrongdoer's attitude is always an idolatry.
Idolatries combine into cogniframes.
Here are the cogniframes that have been most influential in world history.
My analysis draws from Dooyeweerd and Spengler, and is sketchy.
Each date is that of the earliest known relevant creed, which is when the cogniframe is known to have taken definite shape. However, the cogniframe may be relevant to the analysis of events earlier than that.
| Name [Attitudinal Structure] |
Time / Place of Origin |
Key Documents |
|---|---|---|
| Yahwism [Creation, Defection, Restoration-Covenant] ({Hebrew} bara', khet, brit) ({Greek} ktisis, hamartia, anakainosis) |
800 BC Levant |
* Amos (800 BCE) * Psalm 51 (??? BCE) * The New Covenant Book (from 50 CE) |
| Yoga [Duty vs Escape] ({Sanscrit} dharma, moksha) |
600 BC India |
* The Vedas * The Upanishads * Sutta Nikaya 56:11 * The Vishnu Purana * The Shiva Purana * The Bhagavadgita * Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation |
| Hellenism [Form vs Matter] ({Greek} morphe, hule) |
400 BC Aegean |
* Aeschylus' Oresteia * Aristotle's Metaphysics |
| Taiji [Propriety vs Quietness] ({Chinese} li, wu wei) |
300 BC China |
* The Analects of Confucius * The DaoDeJing |
| Magism [Good vs Evil] |
100 BC Persia |
* The Avesta * Ibn Sina's Kitab al-Shifa * al-Ghazali's Munqidh |
| Scholasticism [{Form vs Matter}-Grace, Defection, Restoration] ({Latin} {forma vs materia}-gratia, peccatus, restoratio) |
1100 CE Italy |
* Aquinas' Summa Theologiae |
| Humanism [Causality vs Personhood] |
1600 CE W. Europe |
* Descartes' Discourse on Method * Hume's Treatise of Human Nature * The U.S. Declaration of Independence * The French Declaration of the Rights of Man |
Each of the following topics concerns several cogniframes.
Apollo and Dionysus. All the cogniframes arising from wicked attitudes (Hellenism, Taiji and Yoga) display a striking resemblance in that in each case the idol-pair can be characterised as outward-orderly (morphe, ru, dharma) versus inward-spontaneous (hule, dao, moksha). Generalising from Hellenism, these may be called "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" respectively. Two could be coincidence but three suggests a pattern, though as yet I lack a theory about why this pattern arises. Some kind of functional differentiation is probably involved; think of Parsons' AGIL schema with its binary basis in the alternation of activity-repose, summer-winter, inhale-exhale, etc, but gone wild.
Each of the following topics concerns the history of attitudes as a whole.
Tepidity. History tells us of much unreflecting self-indulgence and ad hoc self-justification. If that is the most usual consequence of our defection, it is also the least worthy of study. The kind of attitude described here arises when a self "raises its sights" to form a conscious (albeit sometimes inarticulate) view of its duties, overall task, and ultimate goal. In that sense, this is the history of the thinking of the best selves; and to the reader suspicious of such "grand ideas" I say, one road to Hell may be paved with good intent, but all roads paved with ill intent or indifference also lead there, and the only road that leads anywhere else is also paved with good intent. There are many quacks, but we still need doctors.
Gaps. I hope I have at least mentioned, and in most cases offered some analysis of, all the cogniframes that seem most influential from the point of view of our present time. For other influential cogniframes we might look to the ancient Egypt of the Book of the Dead and the ancient Akkadia (Mesopotamia) of Gilgamesh, but I have not as yet reached any conclusions about how to characterise these; I think this is because the scarcity of primary sources makes it harder, but maybe I am a bad workman blaming his materials. Japan may deserve separate treatment, but at present I am treating it as an adjunct to China; Zen is of course Chan with a Nipponese accent, and if Shinto differs enormously from Ruism in principle (the details of course are different) I will gladly learn about it. Christian-era Judaism, as far as I can see, has defined itself negatively, so for all the achievements of its practitioners I see no stable distinct cogniframe in it. And to adherents of any cogniframe I have overlooked altogether, I apologise and hope you will correct me.