Varieties of cognition in early Buddhism

P. D. Premasiri

The chapter discusses five varieties of knowing, namely sensory, extra-sensory, holistic, insight, and axiological. The implications of the different kinds of knowing have been discussed, and how they differ from Western psychology on two grounds. First, unlike the so-called scientific psychology, in Buddhism there is no separation of facts and values, as they both go together. Secondly, by its five-fold classification of valid cognition Buddhism extends the restrictive methodological base of contemporary psychology and provides a more inclusive paradigm of cognitive activity beyond the objective criteria of empirical science to include transformational knowing, which is private but objective.