The Belief In Intuition

Within the Western tradition, it was the philosophers Henri Bergson and Max Scheler who laid out and explored the nonrational power of "intuition" at work in human beings that plays a key role in orienting their thinking and action within the world. As author Adriana Alfaro Altamirano notes, Bergon's and Scheler's philosophical explorations, which paralleled similar developments by other modernist writers, artists, and political actors of the early twentieth century, can yield fruitful insights into the ideas and passions that animate politics in our own time. The Belief in Intuition shows that intuition (as Bergson and Scheler understood it) leads, first and foremost, to a conception of freedom that is especially suited for dealing with hierarchy, uncertainty, and alterity. Such a conception of freedom is grounded in a sense of individuality that remains true to its "inner multiplicity," thus providing a distinct contrast to and critique of the liberal notion of the self. Focusing on the complex inner lives that drive human action, as Bergson and Scheler did, leads us to appreciate the moral and empirical limits of liberal devices that mean to regulate our actions "from the outside." Such devices, like the law, may not only carry pernicious effects for freedom but, more troublingly, oftentimes "erase their traces," concealing the very ways in which they are detrimental to a richer experience of subjectivity. According to Alfaro Altamirano, Bergson's and Scheler's conception of intuition and personal authority puts contemporary discussions about populism in a different light: It shows that liberalism would only at its own peril deny the anthropological, moral, and political importance of the bearers of charismatic authority. Personal authority thus understood relies on a dense, but elusive, notion of personality, for which personal authority is not only consistent with freedom, but even contributes to it in decisive ways.

Within the Western tradition, it was the philosophers Henri Bergson and Max Scheler who laid out and explored the nonrational power of "intuition" at work in human beings that plays a key role in orienting their thinking and action within the world. As author Adriana Alfaro Altamirano notes, Bergon's and Scheler's philosophical explorations, which paralleled similar developments by other modernist writers, artists, and political actors of the early twentieth century, can yield fruitful insights into the ideas and passions that animate politics in our own time. The Belief in Intuition shows that intuition (as Bergson and Scheler understood it) leads, first and foremost, to a conception of freedom that is especially suited for dealing with hierarchy, uncertainty, and alterity. Such a conception of freedom is grounded in a sense of individuality that remains true to its "inner multiplicity," thus providing a distinct contrast to and critique of the liberal notion of the self. Focusing on the complex inner lives that drive human action, as Bergson and Scheler did, leads us to appreciate the moral and empirical limits of liberal devices that mean to regulate our actions "from the outside." Such devices, like the law, may not only carry pernicious effects for freedom but, more troublingly, oftentimes "erase their traces," concealing the very ways in which they are detrimental to a richer experience of subjectivity. According to Alfaro Altamirano, Bergson's and Scheler's conception of intuition and personal authority puts contemporary discussions about populism in a different light: It shows that liberalism would only at its own peril deny the anthropological, moral, and political importance of the bearers of charismatic authority. Personal authority thus understood relies on a dense, but elusive, notion of personality, for which personal authority is not only consistent with freedom, but even contributes to it in decisive ways.

Discover your own deep well of wisdom in Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic—from one of the greatest spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. Intuition deals with the difference between the intellectual, logical mind and the more encompassing realm of spirit. Logic is how the mind knows reality, intuition is how the spirit experiences reality. Osho’s discussion of these matters is wonderfully lucid, occasionally funny, and thoroughly engrossing. All people have a natural capacity for intuition, but often social conditioning and formal education work against it. People are taught to ignore their instincts rather than to understand and use them as a foundation for individual growth and development—and in the process they undermine the very roots of the innate wisdom that is meant to flower into intuition. In this volume, Osho pinpoints exactly what intuition is and gives guidelines for how to identify its functioning in others and ourselves. You will learn to distinguish between genuine intuitive insight and the “wishful thinking” that can often lead to mistaken choices and unwanted consequences. Includes many specific exercises and meditations designed to nourish and support each individual’s natural intuitive gifts. Osho challenges readers to examine and break free of the conditioned belief systems and prejudices that limit their capacity to enjoy life in all its richness. He has been described by the Sunday Times of London as one of the “1000 Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day (India) as one of the ten people—along with Gandhi, Nehru, and Buddha—who have changed the destiny of India. Since his death in 1990, the influence of his teachings continues to expand, reaching seekers of all ages in virtually every country of the world.

The standard view of philosophical methodology is that philosophers rely on intuitions as evidence. Herman Cappelen argues that this claim is false, and reveals how it has encouraged pseudo-problems, presented misguided ideas of what philosophy is, and misled exponents of metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy.

Radical skepticism endorses the extreme claim that large swaths of our ordinary beliefs, such as those produced by perception or memory, are irrational. The best arguments for such skepticism are, in their essentials, as familiar as a popular science fiction movie and yet even seasoned epistemologists continue to find them strangely seductive. Moreover, although most contemporary philosophers dismiss radical skepticism, they cannot agree on how best to respond to the challenge it presents. In the tradition of the 18th century Scottish philosopher, Thomas Reid, Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition joins this discussion by taking up four main tasks. First, it identifies the strongest arguments for radical skepticism, namely, underdetermination arguments, which emphasize the gap between our evidence and our ordinary beliefs based on that evidence. Second, it rejects all inferential or argument-based responses to radical skepticism, which aim to lay out good noncircular reasoning from the evidence on which we base our ordinary beliefs to the conclusion that those beliefs are probably true. Third, it develops a commonsense noninferential response to radical skepticism with two distinctive features: (a) it consciously and extensively relies on epistemic intuitions, which are seemings about epistemic goods, such as knowledge and rationality, and (b) it can be endorsed without difficulty by both internalists and externalists in epistemology. Fourth, and finally, it defends this commonsense epistemic-intuition-based response to radical skepticism against a variety of objections, including those connected with underdetermination worries, epistemic circularity, disagreement problems, experimental philosophy, and concerns about whether it engages skepticism in a sufficiently serious way.

While building a strong program in Critical Care on foundations of excellence and compassion, Dr. Wood used two methods of inquiry and knowing: Science looked outward with objective, accurate, reproducible measurements to falsify erroneous explanations. Belief looked inward for purpose and meaning, analyzing personal subjective issues, like God, which cannot be falsified for lack of a Godometer. But when verified by the still small voice or intuition, belief creates a spiritual source of knowing akin to the scientific method. Recent books like War of the Worldviews assume science and spirituality are antagonistic; debating which is better is like bringing a knife to a gunfight, for both sides are vulnerable to critique. Science, Belief, Intuition shows how the strengths of one fill the gaps of the other, providing more comprehensive understanding together than either alone.

Is torturing the innocent OK? Just now something happened: it seemed to you that torturing the innocent is wrong. What kind of mental state were you in? What is its nature? Perhaps you now believe that torturing the innocent is wrong because it just seemed to you that it is. If so, that seems appropriate. But is it really, and if so, what could explain this? In this book, Koksvik argues these mental states form a psychological kind called ‘intuition’, and that having an intuition indeed justifies you in believing what it says. What explains this, he argues, is how similar intuition is to perception. Through a detailed examination he shows that intuition, just like perception, is a conscious experience, and that the two experience types have important properties in common, in virtue of which they can both justify belief. In sharp contrast to traditional thought, Koksvik argues that intuition is completely unrestricted in content: we have intuitions about morality and metaphysics, but also about all sorts of everyday things, like danger or trustworthiness, and in all cases they can justify. The use of intuition is thus not only a legitimate part of philosophical and scientific practice, it also plays a pervasive, important and legitimate role in all of our everyday rational lives.

As the title indicates, in this book the overall position which has been presented is that intuition is a natural and necessary part of the mind`s--life, i.e., the functioning of the human mind in the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding. However, even though intuition is natural and necessary for human knowledge and understanding, it is not viewed with favour by many thinkers around the world. The reason is that, in general, it has been taken to be a nondiscursive form or independent way of gaining knowledge. Yet, as most rigorous thinkers hold, knowledge is by its very nature discursive.Given the foregoing view of intuition, as it is generally understood, the challenge which has been set before the author in writing this book was to legitimate the belief in and use of intuition by presenting an explanation as to its nature and uses which is not at odds with what rigorous thinkers take knowledge to be. The core idea of that has been take in intuition to be in the writings of Sarvepalli RAdhakrishnan. Briefly, intuition, so viewed, is taken to be an integral process of the mind, which culminates in an act of insight. The process involves reasoning, but the insight in which the process culminates does not.Intuition, is not a form of knowledge; rather it is only one means to knowledge which together with reason, sense-experience, and revelation (in the Heideggerian sense) make possible knowledge and understanding.