 In spite of the fact that cognition and emotion are both material, emotions have a negative connotation in Sāṃkhya philosophy. In this regard the account is similar to that of many Western philosophers. However, in Western philosophy the idea is to have cognition free from emotion. By contrast, the Sāṃkhya philosophers do not think of cognition as a desirable end in itself. Rather, their idea is that ultimate liberation lies in the recognition of puruṣa by prakṛti. This means that our everyday experience of ourselves as conscious intellects with cognitions and emotions is an obstacle on the way to realizing what pure contentless consciousness is. In fact, Sāṃkhya philosophers argue that our experience of ourselves as conscious beings is a mistake that needs to be rectified in order to achieve liberation. This realization is extremely difficult to achieve and therefore Sāṃkhya proposes first of all to clear the mind of the passions [SSu 2.15] by separating them from cognition and then to free the mind from cognition in order to comprehend contentless consciousness. So emotions or passions are regarded as negative but they are not contrasted with cognitions because cognitions themselves are supposed to be overcome in order to understand puruṣa.