Descriptions of knowledge focus on acquisition of a form, the form acquired, the object apprehended, reception by the mind, or the relation between knower and known.
Conception grasps a meaning without independently judging it.
Assent involves an affirmative or negative judgment. Philosophers and Imam al-Razi analyze the role of its constituent apprehensions differently.
Immediate knowledge needs no further reasoning at that point; inferential knowledge requires reflection. Either can occur in conception or assent.
The next discussion examines inferential knowledge, thought, and the ordering of what is already known.