In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge—i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of (...) what does it do so? A natural idea about perception is that a perception makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you sensorily aware of the concrete objects it is about. The analogous idea about intuition is that an intuition makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you intellectually aware of the abstract objects it is about. I expand both ideas into fuller accounts of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, explain the main challenge to this sort of account of intuitive knowledge (i.e. the challenge of making sense of intellectual awareness), and develop a response to it. (shrink)

Intuition (hads) as a function of 'aql, fitrah and khirad, according to Ibn Sina, not only constitutes the basis of all learning, and hence a way for arriving independently at new knowledge, but serves as means for verifying what has been studied and learned from others, representing direct insight into the true nature of reality as a coherent whole. Some questions remain, however, as to what distinguishes intuition from other kinds of cognition and what is so special about (...) class='Hi'>intuitive knowledge and, furthermore, "How is intuitive knowledge possible or what are the conditions of intuitive cognition?" To provide an analytical account of Ibn Sina's thought and examine his statements on this matter is the aim of this article. (shrink)

Basing itself on the cognitive theory of the modern Canadian philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan, the article conducts a critical appraisal of the notion of intuitive knowledge (ḥads in Arabic) as espoused by the famous medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna). The article shows the ways in which Lonergan’s crucial distinction between the objectivity as the knower’s intelligent grasp of the real and the objectivity as the knower’s critical affirmation of the real, revises the epistemological primacy of intuitivism (...) that is endemic not only to Avicennian thought in particular but also to Aristotelian tradition generally. At the same time, it shows various elements of continuity between Lonergan’s and Avicenna’s analyses of intentional consciousness. It argues that, while Lonergan’s thought revises Avicenna’s lack of attention to the role of one’s further rational affirmation of anything that one has gasped only intuitively, Lonergan’s cognitive theory might conceptually benefit from a number of original Avicennian insights when it comes to one’s experiential and intelligent grasp of the objects of one’s consciousness. (shrink)

This paper explores the notion that children have a knowledge of the world of their own – an intuitive knowledge. Being fully immersed in the world as adults are, they too have a knowledge of the world. In contrast to adults, who have developed a cognitive knowledge of the world, children still depend on their intuitive knowledge. Children certainly have a strong grasp of the world they live in; it’s just not dependent on (...) cognitive knowledge. In my paper I compare and contrast Kohlberg and Lipman’s views on children’s ability to be natural philosophers. To be immersed in the world, brings to mind Martin Buber’s idea that we are born in relation, the a priori of relation, which only later develops into the essential relation as we develop the consciousness of our individual separateness. This a priori relation, then, forms the basis for children’s intuitive knowledge, and which is expressed through the language of imagination. And certainly, imagination is not devoid of any kind of reason. In focusing strictly on children’s cognitive development and ignoring their inborn relation with the world, we essentially rob them of their foothold in the world, their inner authority needed for self-regulated thinking. We create a world where children grow up dependent on authority, status, trends and fads. This can lead to what we’ve observed in the famous Milgram study. Philosophy with children encourages children to speak from their own place, in a form of parrhesia, if you will, and to discuss together with others the complexities of ideas. It honors their inborn relation with the world, their statements and aids in the process of developing their cognitive knowledge out of their intuitive grasp of the world. In respecting their inborn relation, philosophy with children allows children to grow up as full human beings, not just as smart and educated “disembodied creatures.” Children speak from the logic of experience (Foucault). Through the process of putting thinking itself into question, children become aware of themselves as thinking beings. It is what Bohm refers to as the “proprioception of thought,” the ability to “observe thought.” Philosophers, I argue, are experts in not knowing. In practicing the art of philosophy, the art of not knowing, we need each other to think together to explore deeper concepts. This binds us and allows us to explore the unknown with joy, curiosity and confidence. In an example from my own experience, I show that children not only intuitively touch on complex philosophical ideas; students are wrestling with ideas about how to understand the world, which is where philosophy began as well. How can we be surprised when children decide computer games are more interesting than life itself, if we have essentially robbed them of the desire to “get dirty,” and engage this world filled with wonder. We have created a world too boring and act surprised when children are bored. The world isn’t boring and in “doing” philosophy with children we keep the fascination with this place we call earth alive. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explore the distinction between reason (ratio) and intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) in Spinoza’s Ethics in order to explain the superior affective power of the latter over the former. In addressing this fundamental but relatively unexplored issue in Spinoza scholarship, I suggest that these two kinds of adequate knowledge differ not only in terms of their method, but also with respect to their content. I hold that unlike reason, which is a universal knowledge, (...) intuitive knowledge descends to a level of particularity, including the adequate knowledge of one’s own essence as it follows directly from God, which is a superior form of self-knowledge. Since, for Spinoza, there is an intrinsic relationship between the pursuit of knowledge and how we live our lives, my interpretation of these two ways of knowing is that they are at the same time two ways of living. (shrink)

Spinoza unequivocally states in the Ethics that intuitive knowledge is more powerful than reason. Nonetheless, it is not clear what exactly this greater power promises in the face of the passions. Does this mean that intuitive knowledge is not liable to akrasia? Ronald Sandler offers what, to my knowledge, is the only explicit answer to this question in recent Spinoza scholarship. According to Sandler, intuitive knowledge, unlike reason, is not susceptible to akrasia. This (...) is because, intuitive knowledge enables the knower to greater power over the passions due to its immediacy, its foundation and because it engenders the boundlessly powerful intellectual love of God. In this paper, I consider to what extent intuitive knowledge is liable to akrasia by exploring whether Sandler's claim can justifiably be attributed to Spinoza. I argue that, given our modal status, it is not plausible to claim that akrasia would never apply to intuitive knowledge. Since intuitive ideas are the ideas of a finite .. (shrink)

Although Spinoza’s words about intuition, also called “the third kind of knowledge,” remain among the most difficult to grasp, I argue that he succeeds in providing an account of its distinctive character. Moreover, the special place that intuition holds in Spinoza’s philosophy is grounded not in its epistemological distinctiveness, but in its ethical promise. I will not go as far as one commentator to claim that the epistemological distinction is negligible (Malinowski-Charles 2003),but I do argue that its privileged place (...) in Spinoza’s system belongs primarily to its ethical importance, by which I mean that intuition’s value is prized by virtue of the agency it confers upon those who enjoy it. Spinoza often notes that what distinguishes the “wise man” is that he is more powerful, able to do more. That is,the wise and free person with whose description the Ethics culminates is set apart not, first and foremost, by virtue of possessing a scientific account of the true cosmological order. The Ethics is perhaps called an ethics, rather than a treatise on metaphysics or knowledge, because it concludes with a demonstration of how one comes to be able to do what is best and to live a more joyful life. Intuitive science is essential to the characterization of the power to think and live well. (shrink)

While both intuitive knowledge and reason are adequate ways of knowing for Spinoza, they are not equal. Intuitive knowledge, which Spinoza describes as the ‘greatest virtue of mind’, is superior to reason. The nature of this superiority has been the subject of some controversy due to Spinoza's notoriously parsimonious treatment of the distinction between reason and intuitive knowledge in the Ethics. In this paper, I argue that intuitive knowledge differs from reason not (...) only in terms of its method of cognition—but also in terms of its content. More specifically, I maintain that there is something that is known by intuition, namely the unique essences of things, that is not known by reason. My argument is supported by an examination of Spinoza's account of essences in the Ethics, which reveals that he is committed to both unique and shared essences. Based on this dual commitment, I argue that whereas for Spinoza both reason and intuition can be said to reach adequate knowledge of the shared essence of a thing, the unique essence of a singular thing, which is nothing but its actual essence, can only be known through intuitive knowledge. (shrink)

Analysis of Stephen Colbert's notion of 'truthiness' and its connection to epistemic irrationality and self-deception.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 6, June 2022.

The article discusses peirce's attack on descartes' concept of intuition and gives an analysis of his conclusions that: there are no objective criteria enabling us to discern between intuition and indirect knowledge; there is no satisfactory logical or experimental explanation of intuitive knowledge; there can be no cognition without signs. peirce's arguments against intuition possess elements which later proponents of intuitive knowledge (husserl, bergson, scheler, heidegger) would find difficult to deal with. if logical positivists in (...) the 1930's had been acquainted with peirce's views, the discussion on "protocol sentences" and the verification principle would have developed differently or ended sooner. (shrink)

In this article, we will attempt to understand Sellars’ puzzling notion of ‘adequate picturing’ and its relation to the Sellarsian ‘conceptual order’ through Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge. First, it will be suggested that there are important structural similarities between Sellarsian ‘adequate picturing’ and Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge which can illuminate some ‘dark’ and not so well understood features of Sellarsian picturing. However, there remain some deep differences between Sellars’ and Spinoza’s philosophy, especially with regard to their notion of (...) ‘adequacy’ and the sense in which an idea can be said to ‘correspond’ with its object. As a consequence of those differences it turns out that, from a Sellarsian viewpoint, Spinoza’s notion of intuitive knowledge is a version of the myth of the Given. However, Sellars’ own proposed way out of the Myth has problematic consequences by Sellars’ own lights: His sharp distinction between the ‘space of reasons’ level and the level of picturing makes the Sellarsian vision of the ‘stereoscopic fusion’ of those levels virtually unintelligible. Finally, it will be argued that a non-standard interpretation of Spinoza’s intuitive knowledge -proposed in Baltas -, combined with a Sellars-inspired bifurcated understanding of Dreyfusian expert knowledge, can provide the means 1) for constructing a notion of intuitive knowledge that evades the myth of the Given, and, 2) for making full sense of the claim that the ‘space of reasons’ dimension of understanding the world can in principle be fused with the ‘picturing’ dimension and provide us with a single complex coherent experience of reality and our place in it. (shrink)

Experimental restrictionists have challenged philosophers’ reliance on intuitions about thought experiment cases based on experimental findings. According to the expertise defense, only the intuitions of philosophical experts count—yet the bulk of experimental philosophy consists in studies with lay people. In this paper, we argue that direct strategies for assessing the expertise defense are preferable to indirect strategies. A direct argument in support of the expertise defense would have to show: first, that there is a significant difference between expert and lay (...) intuitions; second, that expert intuitions are superior to lay intuitions; and third, that expert intuitions accord with the relevant philosophical consensus. At present, there is only little experimental evidence that bears on these issues. To advance the debate, we conducted two new experiments on intuitions about knowledge with experts and lay people. Our results suggest that the intuitions of epistemological experts are superior in some respects, but they also pose an unexpected challenge to the expertise defense. Most strikingly, we found that even epistemological experts tend to ascribe knowledge in fake-barn-style cases. This suggests that philosophy, as a discipline, might fail to adequately map the intuitions of its expert practitioners onto a disciplinary consensus. (shrink)

The compass we use to navigate life needs to be cultivated from an early age. My sense is that the arts, including Plato’s dialogues cultivate our navigational sense. It does not tell us rationally what is good or what is bad. It is not that simple. Remember, the stars we sail by, are not fixed, either. So we need to develop a sense for what may be right or not in any particular situation. We may have a general sense, but (...) need to learn how to apply this general sense to specific situations, which are unique. In every new situation we have to figure out what is the right thing to do. And this may be different for different people as well. Too often we look for a one-fits-all solution, including our moral sense of right and wrong. And this is where we so often end up resorting to a violent “solution,” just to end it all. While we may have acquired so many technological advancements in our modern world, on the level of understanding how to navigate the world we may have regressed even, now that we can increasingly rely of highly technically advanced weapons. Again, violence seems to bear the only “solution.” -/- Yet, with our compass intact, we might be better able to recognize the red flags when we see them in real life and not find ways to rationalize, justify or ignore the reality right before our eyes. When we recognize them early, they can be handled so much easier and better. Molehills are less difficult than mountains. And to get rid of a mountain, you may just have to blow it up, using violence... (shrink)

In Sanskrit philosophy, the closest analogue of intuition is pratibhā. Here, I will focus on the theory of pratibhā offered by the Sanskrit grammarian Bhartṛhari (fifth century CE). On this account, states of pratibhā play two distinct psychological roles. First, they serve as sources of linguistic understanding. They are the states by means of which linguistically competent agents effortlessly understand the meaning of novel sentences. Second, states of pratibhā serve as sources of practical knowledge. On the basis of such (...) states, both human and non-human agents unreflectively know which actions they should perform under which circumstances. Given these two roles of pratibhā, modern commentators have often claimed that states of pratibhā, as understood by Bhartṛhari, are intuitions. In this article, I will reconstruct Bhartṛhari's view and to explore its consequences, I will argue that, if Bhartṛhari’s theory of pratibhā is right, then a form of human exceptionalism – which makes rationality a unique trait of human beings – becomes difficult to maintain. (shrink)

Moderate pragmatic invariantism (MPI) is a proposal to explain why our intuitions about the truth-value of knowledge claims vary with stakes and salient error-possibilities. The basic idea is that this variation is due to a variation not in the propositions expressed (as epistemic contextualists would have it) but in the propositions conversationally implicated. I will argue that MPI is mistaken: I will distinguish two kinds of implicature, namely, additive and substitutional implicatures. I will then argue, first, that the proponent (...) of MPI cannot appeal to additive implicatures because they don’t affect truth-value intuitions in the required way. Second, I will argue that the proponent of MPI cannot appeal to substitutional implicatures either because, even though they may have the required effects on truth-value intuitions, they don’t feature in the relevant cases. It follows that MPI is mistaken because whether the proponent of MPI appeals to additive or substitutional implicatures, at least one of the claims that make up her view is false. Along the way, I will suggest principles about implicatures that should be relevant not only to MPI, but to pragmatic accounts of seemingly semantic intuitions in general. (shrink)

Action is not always guided by conscious deliberation; in many circumstances, we act intuitively rather than reflectively. Tamar Gendler (2014) contends that because intuitively guided action can lead us away from our reflective commitments, it limits the power of knowledge to guide action. While I agree that intuition can diverge from reflection, I argue that this divergence does not constitute a restriction on the power of knowledge. After explaining my view of the contrast between intuitive and reflective (...) thinking, this paper argues against the conclusions Gendler draws from empirical work on implicit bias. (shrink)

Despite its phenomenal success since its inception in the early nineteen-nineties, the evidence-based medicine movement has not succeeded in shaking off an epistemological critique derived from the experiential or tacit dimensions of clinical reasoning about particular individuals. This critique claims that the evidence-based medicine model does not take account of tacit knowing as developed by the philosopher Michael Polanyi. However, the epistemology of evidence-based medicine is premised on the elimination of the tacit dimension from clinical judgment. This is demonstrated through (...) analyzing the dichotomy between clinical and statistical intuition in evidence-based medicine’s epistemology of clinical reasoning. I argue that clinical epidemiology presents a more nuanced epistemological model for the application of statistical epidemiology to the clinical context. Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowing is compatible with the model of clinical reasoning associated with clinical epidemiology, but not evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

"Intuition" has perhaps been the least understood and the most abused term in philosophy. It is often the term used when one has no plausible explanation for the source of a given belief or opinion. According to some sceptics, it is understood only in terms of what it is not, and it is not any of the better understood means for acquiring knowledge. In mathematics the term has also unfortunately been used in this way. Thus, intuition is sometimes portrayed (...) as if it were the Third Eye, something only mathematical "mystics", like Ramanujan, possess. In mathematics the notion has also been used in a host of other senses: by "intuitive" one might mean informal, or non-rigourous, or visual, or holistic, or incomplete, or perhaps even convincing in spite of lack of proof. My aim in this book is to sweep all of this aside, to argue that there is a perfectly coherent, philosophically respectable notion of mathematical intuition according to which intuition is a condition necessary for mathemati cal knowledge. I shall argue that mathematical intuition is not any special or mysterious kind of faculty, and that it is possible to make progress in the philosophical analysis of this notion. This kind of undertaking has a precedent in the philosophy of Kant. While I shall be mostly developing ideas about intuition due to Edmund Husser! there will be a kind of Kantian argument underlying the entire book. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Gaston Bachelard’s criticism of Henri Bergson’s employment of intuition as the specific method of philosophy, and as a reliable means of acquiring knowledge. I locate Bachelard’s criticism within the reception of Bergsonian intuition by rationalist philosophers who subscribed to the Third Republic’s ethos. I argue that the reasons of Bachelard’s rejection of Bergsonian intuition were not only epistemological, but also ethical and pedagogical. His view of knowledge as mediated, social, and historical, cannot be (...) separated from his conceptions of society, education, and the human being. (shrink)

An understanding of the nature and development of nursing intuition can help nurse educators foster it in young nurses and give clinicians more confidence in this aspect of their knowledge, allowing them to respond with greater assurance to their intuitions. In this paper, accounts from philosophy and neurophysiology are used to argue that intuition, specifically nursing intuition, is a valid form of knowledge. The paper argues that nursing intuition, a kind of practical intuition, is composed of four distinct (...) aspects that include: embodied knowledge rather like that knowledge we have when we have learned to ride a bicycle; well‐trained sensory perceptions attentive to subtle details of complex, often rapidly changing situations; a significant store of pertinent conceptual knowledge; and a history of habitual actions intentionally directed towards achieving the best outcomes for our patients. Contemporary neurophysiology research strongly suggests that human persons experience other persons such that they directly understand the meaning of a variety of different human actions, intentions, emotions, and sensations in immediate, non‐reflective, and non‐conceptual perceptions. This research is supported by the philosophical theories of Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon found in their accounts of practical knowledge. Together, these accounts offer us a rich view of the reality of nursing intuition that helps us understand why we find intuitive actions in some but not all nurses and gives us some specific information about how to develop intuition in young nurses. Finally, this research shows us a path for further research. (shrink)

The thesis is a study of the notion of intuition in the foundations of mathematics which focuses on the case of natural numbers and hereditarily finite sets. Phenomenological considerations are brought to bear on some of the main objections that have been raised to this notion. ;Suppose that a person P knows that S only if S is true, P believes that S, and P's belief that S is produced by a process that gives evidence for it. On a phenomenological (...) view the relevant evidence is provided by intuition , and this should be the case in either ordinary perceptual knowledge or in mathematical knowledge. Intuition is to be understood in terms of fulfillments of intentions. Knowledge is a product of intuition and intention. In the case of mathematical knowledge it is said that there is a construction for a mathematical statement S if and only if the intention expressed by S is fulfilled . Constructions are thus viewed as intuition processes that could actually or possibly be carried out. In elementary parts of mathematics they might be characterized in terms of certain classes of recursive functions. This view is discussed in the case where S is taken to be a singular statement about natural numbers or finite sets, and also where S is taken to be a general statement about such objects. The distinction between intuition of and intuition that is also investigated in this context. ;It is pointed out how on a phenomenological view a number of central problems about mathematical intuition can be avoided: problems about the analogousness of perceptual and mathematical intuition, about causal accounts of knowledge in mathematics, and about structuralism in mathematics. The bearing of the account on issues concerning constructivism and platonism is also discussed. (shrink)

Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mullā Ṣadrā on Existence, Intellect and Intuition. By Ibrahim Kalin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xxii + 315. $74, £45.

The idea that intuition plays a basic role in moral knowledge and moral philosophy probably began in the eighteenth century. British philosophers such as Anthony Shaftsbury, Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and later David Hume talk about a “moral sense” that they place in John Locke’s theory of knowledge in terms of Lockean reflexive perceptions, while Richard Price seeks a faculty by which we obtain our ideas of right and wrong. In the twentieth century intuitionism in moral philosophy was (...) revived by the works of G. E. Moore, H. A. Prichard, and W. D. Ross. These philosophers reject Kantian deontological ethics and utilitarianism insisting that intuition is the only source of moral knowledge. Recently, there is a renewed interest in intuition by philosophers doing meta-philosophy by reflecting on what philosophers do, and why they disagree. In this essay we plan to take some of this recent literature on intuition and apply it to moral philosophy. We will proceed by defining a conception of intuition, answering some skeptical challenges, delimiting its target, and arguing that intuition is often a source of moral knowledge. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of philosophical discussion about such concrete moral issues as just war, distribution of food aid, euthanasia, reverse discrimination, etc. Much of this discussion implicitly assumes that there are true and false positions on these issues, valid or invalid arguments for these positions, etc. Recent years have not witnessed, however, a proliferation of philosophical defenses of these assumptions. With the decline of metaethical discussions, these assumptions have remained just assumptions rather than the conclusions of a (...) philosophical argument. (shrink)

One of the most venerable and enduring intuitions in epistemology concerns the relationship between true belief and knowledge. Famously articulated by Socrates, it holds that true belief does not suffice for knowledge. I discuss a matching intuition about ignorance according to which true belief does not suffice for the absence of ignorance. I argue that the latter intuition undercuts the New View of Ignorance and supports the Standard View of Ignorance.