Cognitive polyphasia is where different kinds of knowledge, possessing different rationalities live side by side in the same individual or collective. [1] From Greek: polloi "many", phasis "appearance".
In his research on popular representations of psychoanalysis in France, Serge Moscovici observed that different and even contradictory modes of thinking about the same issue often co-exist. In contemporary societies people are "speaking" medical, psychological, technical, and political languages in their daily affairs. By extending this phenomenon to the level of thought he suggests that "the dynamic co-existence—interference or specialization—of the distinct modalities of knowledge, corresponding to definite relations between man and his environment, determines a state of cognitive polyphasia".[2]