Traditionally, cognition is understood as the process of interaction of the subject with the object, which helps to determine the content of reality - that is, of what is, could be, was and will be. In culture, the figure of the soothsayer Tiresias from the Odyssey can be considered a symbol of this process. When studying this type of human activity, one of the main antinomies arises: how sensory and rational cognition are related. This problem is most clearly expressed in Nietzsche: he contrasted such phenomena as tragic and Socratic, Apollonian and Dionysian. The same confrontation appears in Leo Shestov, as the opposite between the "Athens" and the "Jerusalem". The whole history of philosophy is permeated by the opposition between the discursive and the intuitive, and the attempts to combine them into a whole.
The language of philosophy in most cases is multi-layered, and therefore, in the concepts of “sensual” and “rational” cognition, several meanings can be distinguished. The ratio refers to logical thinking associated with certain forms, predefined formulations (concepts, judgments, definitions, axioms). This kind of thinking is most often analytical, it uses inductive and deductive methods. As a rule, a rational type of comprehension of the world tends to natural and social ordering, he prefers a method of conceptual-discursive understanding, and his main achievement is a combination of methods and forms, which are the principles of scientific research. True, modern philosophy, such as Feyerabend, suggests that there are several types of rationality.
Sensory cognition and its forms, such as sensation, perception and representation, are mainly combined with the phenomenon of irrational. One of its components is the irrational, which in turn is divided into an instinctive reaction to the world (it can also be made the subject of research) and some dark, empty, antagonistic impulses to the mind. Next comes the unconscious (subconscious), which is a special area that is different from the phenomena that are subject to comprehension. Leibniz was the first to guess his existence, who called him "dark perceptions." Then the German romantics turned to this phenomenon, guessing in it the natural source of creativity. According to Freud, this is a powerful, opposing consciousness force that you can try to control with the help of psychoanalysis.
Sensual and rational knowledge, their analysis and understanding, are associated with the study of such an interesting concept as intuitive. There are many types of intuition that can come close to logical thinking, or not at all in contact with it. There is a rational heuristic - this is a kind of cognition when truth is revealed to the subject not gradually, but suddenly, simultaneously. The way of cognition, which happens as if abruptly, is called intellectual intuition, and scientific insight (insight) is an element of a rational approach to studying the problem. In fact, this is another form of rational knowledge. By intuition, we also understand the artistic model of comprehending the world, which is different from the scientific one, and the way of being of a person, and even a certain type of values (from the point of view of Husserl and Scheler, they are revealed not through the mind, but in acts of love or hatred, for example, idiosyncrasy).
Depending on the time, place of action, a particular philosopher, there are different theories that justify how sensory and rational cognition are related. However, in general, they can be divided into three groups - 1) concepts that believe that these two types of mental activity completely deny each other; 2) theories, not only opposing, but also delimiting the scope of their application; and 3) teachings trying to find a single source for both forms of cognition, as well as options for their interaction and integration. A similar division is also characteristic of the philosophy of culture, where we observe both the opposition of both under the guise of Life and Spirit, experience and reflection, eidos and logos, contemplation and concept, heart and head, and attempts to reduce them to a common denominator.