more from this thinker     |     more from this text


Single Idea 11079

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition ]

Full Idea

If intuition is an inner voice - how do I know how I am to obey it? And how do I know that it doesn't mislead me? For if it can guide me right, it can also guide me wrong. ((Intuition an unnecessary shuffle))

Gist of Idea

How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition?

Source

Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], 213)

Book Ref

Wittgenstein,Ludwig: 'Philosophical Investigations', ed/tr. Anscombe,E. [Blackwell 1972], p.84


A Reaction

Presumably the last point, in brackets, means that you still have to evaluate the intuition, with which I would agree. I take judgement to occur in the space of reasons, to which intuition is a major contributor. Only a fool would just accept intuition.


The 26 ideas with the same theme [direct awareness of knowledge]:

Intuition grasps the definitions that can't be proved [Aristotle]
Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML]
Intuition gives us direct and certain knowledge of what is obvious [Locke]
Kantian intuitions are of particulars, and they give immediate knowledge [Kant, by Shapiro]
Intuition is a representation that depends on the presence of the object [Kant]
Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte]
Bolzano wanted to avoid Kantian intuitions, and prove everything that could be proved [Bolzano, by Dummett]
Intuitions cannot be communicated [Frege, by Burge]
Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche]
Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl]
Russell showed, through the paradoxes, that our basic logical intuitions are self-contradictory [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel]
How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein]
We often trust our intuitions as rational, despite their lack of reflection [Solomon]
Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything [Kripke]
Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau]
Intuitions don't prove things; they just receptivity to interpretations [Kekes]
'Intuitions' are just unreliable 'hunches'; over centuries intuitions change enormously [Lowe]
If we learn geometry by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long? [Boghossian]
Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
The word 'intuitive' often plays not role at all in arguments, and can be removed [Cappelen]
Intuition is only outside the 'space of reasons' if all reasons are inferential [Hanna]
Intuition includes apriority, clarity, modality, authority, fallibility and no inferences [Hanna]
Intuition is more like memory, imagination or understanding, than like perception [Hanna]
There is no reason to think our intuitions are good for science or metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross]
It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins]