Levels of Cognition: Did Indian Philosophers know something we do not?

Abstract

This article argues that a model of the mind held by a number of Indian and Tibetan philosophical schools, both Brahmanical and Buddhist, could be extremely useful, even today, and has, if suitably adjusted, great explanatory power with regard to a number of phenomena that we usually call religious. According to this model, there are two fundamentally different levels of cognition: one “with conceptual constructs”, the other one without these. Slightly adjusted, the model comes close to predicting the following phenomena: the experiences of mystics, the almost universally attested use of ritual and of magical formulas, certain often recurring themes in mythology and philosophy, and the omnipresent conviction that there is a deeper reality hiding behind the world of our everyday experience. The article then discusses some possible objections one might raise against the model, and ends with a plea to take it seriously.