more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 16534

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

Full Idea

I suspect that 'intuitions' and 'hunches' are pretty much the same thing, and pretty useless as sources of knowledge. …Things that seemed intuitively true to our forebears a century or two ago often by no means seem intuitively true to us now.

Gist of Idea

'Intuitions' are just unreliable 'hunches'; over centuries intuitions change enormously

Source

E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 2)

Book Ref

-: 'Mind' [-], p.5

A Reaction

I don't accept this. Intuitions change a lot over the centuries because the reliable knowledge which informs intuitions has also changed a lot. Arguments and evidence may nail individual truths, but coherence must rest on intuition.

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

79 Intuition grasps the definitions that can't be proved [Aristotle]
16111 Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML]
12543 Intuition gives us direct and certain knowledge of what is obvious [Locke]
8736 Kantian intuitions are of particulars, and they give immediate knowledge [Kant, by Shapiro]
16911 Intuition is a representation that depends on the presence of the object [Kant]
23246 Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte]
9185 Bolzano wanted to avoid Kantian intuitions, and prove everything that could be proved [Bolzano, by Dummett]
16900 Intuitions cannot be communicated [Frege, by Burge]
14830 Intuition only recognises what is possible, not what exists or is certain [Nietzsche]
21221 Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl]
10040 Russell showed, through the paradoxes, that our basic logical intuitions are self-contradictory [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel]
11079 How do I decide when to accept or obey an intuition? [Wittgenstein]
23957 We often trust our intuitions as rational, despite their lack of reflection [Solomon]
4948 Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything [Kripke]
13408 Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau]
23101 Intuitions don't prove things; they just receptivity to interpretations [Kekes]
16534 'Intuitions' are just unreliable 'hunches'; over centuries intuitions change enormously [Lowe]
9374 If we learn geometry by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long? [Boghossian]
9592 Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
20181 When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
20182 The word 'intuitive' often plays not role at all in arguments, and can be removed [Cappelen]
11078 Intuition is only outside the 'space of reasons' if all reasons are inferential [Hanna]
11077 Intuition includes apriority, clarity, modality, authority, fallibility and no inferences [Hanna]
11080 Intuition is more like memory, imagination or understanding, than like perception [Hanna]
14891 There is no reason to think our intuitions are good for science or metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross]
17734 It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins]