You are oversimplifying it. Discursive knowledge didn't appear all of a sudden out of nothing. It was assembled - based on intuitive insights. No point arguing. The vast majority of the thread is from people who have a genuine interest in examining intuition. — Pantagruel

The vast majority of this thread is wrong about it. It really is just thinking fast and is drawn from experience.

Not to mention the success of it is prone to confirmation bias.

There are no intuitive insights per se, like I said it’s just thinking albeit really fast .

IMO you’re examining a settled matter and trying to make to more than it is

In short intuition tells you what you already know, because it’s just fast thinking. — Darkneos

Interesting. If intuition is thinking it is thinking without reasoning or analysis. I guess that's why it is also called a gut feeling.

What is the part of intuition that is 'already known'? Can you give an example of this in action?

It’s why when tested, experts were found to be reliable in their intuition compared to randos. — Darkneos

That makes sense. Not everyone's intuition on a given subject is going to have equal weight.

That makes sense. Not everyone's intuition on a given subject is going to have equal weight. — Tom Storm

:up:

Some chimps know how to crack the nuts, and some chimps don't.

Of the chimps that don't, the smart ones are the one's who are watching and learning.

What does an awareness of how one's thinking process look like? — Tom Storm

A lot of what I've written in this thread is a description of my own experience using my mind. Earlier in this discussion and in other discussions I've described my experience of intuition as a cloud of knowledge, lit from within and containing everything I know and have experienced - all connected and interacting. I recognize that visual imagery like that has a big role in how I think. Although my thinking is strongly verbal, I visualize my thinking as ideas, thoughts, words bubbling up from a spring from a source I can't see or feel. That invisible source feels as much like me as the part of me I can be aware of.

I have been criticized by more philosophical types that my philosophy is too dependent on introspection, which they find suspect. I've started at least five discussions that examine what different types of mental process feel like from the inside. I've said many times that the focus of my intellectual life is on knowing things, knowing how I know them, and knowing how certain I am of that knowledge. Knowing what knowing feels like is a big part of that.

This is fun. I could go on and on.

You just can’t admit that you’re wrong — Darkneos

IMO you’re examining a settled matter and trying to make to more than it is — Darkneos

Your thinking is rigid and dogmatic. And wrong.

Knowing what knowing feels like is a big part of that. — T Clark

Do you know what being wrong feel like?

Do you know what being wrong feel like? — wonderer1

[irony]It hasn't happened yet. I'm curious to see what it would feel like.[/irony]

[irony]It hasn't happened yet. I'm curious to see what it would feel like.[/irony] — T Clark

Have you seen that TED Talk? If not, I get the impression that you would appreciate it.

You are oversimplifying it. Discursive knowledge didn't appear all of a sudden out of nothing. It was assembled - based on intuitive insights. No point arguing. The vast majority of the thread is from people who have a genuine interest in examining intuition. — Pantagruel

Indeed. As I said earlier, definitions are important when dealing with such an ambiguous term.

@Darkneos seems to be under the impression that by "intuition" we are talking about a knack, a kind of practical knowledge similar to phronesis. For example, he thinks the knack he has developed with respect to League of Legends is intuition.

Of course the word 'intuition' is sometimes used to convey a knack, but the OP is clearly not inquiring about a knack. The OP says:

BonJour includes intuition (or what he calls "rational insight") in his positive account of a priori justification. — Charlie Lin

What is being referred to here is grounded in speculative knowledge, and not merely in practical knowledge. Specifically, it is the simple (non-composite and non-discursive), speculative act by which BonJour grounds his epistemological position of Foundationalism. It is something like intellection.

Indeed. As I said earlier, definitions are important — Leontiskos

I couldn't agree more. There was another thread some time ago questioning the philosophical validity or usefulness of definitions. I couldn't get involved. Without definitions, what else is there? If nothing else, you have to define what it is you are agreeing to discuss....

Have you seen that TED Talk? If not, I get the impression that you would appreciate it. — wonderer1

I'll take a look.

Darkneos seems to be under the impression that by "intuition" we are talking about a knack, a kind of practical knowledge similar to phronesis. For example, he thinks the knack he has developed with respect to League of Legends is intuition. — Leontiskos

No, it's just showing what it IS.

Your thinking is rigid and dogmatic. And wrong. — T Clark

That's not what the research shows.

What is the part of intuition that is 'already known'? Can you give an example of this in action? — Tom Storm

Already known in that you're aware of the result of the intuition not the thought process leading to it.

That's not what the research shows. — Darkneos

As I noted, the research you referenced studied your misconception of what intuition is.

I have been criticized by more philosophical types that my philosophy is too dependent on introspection, which they find suspect. I've started at least five discussions that examine what different types of mental process feel like from the inside. — T Clark

That's really interesting. What things feel like on the inside has never captured my imagination. I'm not even sure what that would mean experientially for me. However I do have an intuitive grasp of my process. :wink: To some extent I know my limitations, my attractions and repulsions, my biases, my patterns, my omissions and my strengths.

Mostly when it comes to intuition or thinking I have instant access to a thought and it generally has no feeling attached to it or anything additional to the thought itself. Maybe this is why I don't care much for poetry and you do - it's in how we are wired to experience things. Or something like that. Do you think there is a connection between intuition and a love of poetry? Curiously, I am not very interested in stories or plots in books or films. I am more interested in language, atmosphere and character.

What things feel like on the inside has never captured my imagination. I'm not even sure what that would mean experientially for me. — Tom Storm

But at the same time, the way you see things and the way I do are often very similar. We both have a use what works pragmatism.

Mostly when it comes to intuition or thinking I have instant access to a thought and it generally has no feeling attached to it or anything additional to the thought itself. Maybe this is why I don't care much for poetry and you do - it's in how we are wired to experience things. — Tom Storm

That's a really good question. It opens up a bunch of issues for me. I'll just keep it simple and say yes, the importance of intellectual self-awareness for me is related to the way I think when I'm reading or writing poetry. That kind of thinking has a purity and depth that are blunted with my regular old every day thinking.

nope, but keep denying reality I guess

Ratiocination is the intellectual operation which consists of composition or synthesis, and decomposition or analysis. It is the operation of the discursive mind which puts things together and pulls things apart. All formal systems of reasoning and logic are meant as aids to ratiocination, and in our world today ratiocination is by far the dominant intellectual act. It is so dominant that when folks like BonJour reference intellection ('intuition') our culture tends to balk! — Leontiskos

I appreciate your dichotomy. But after all what exactly is intellection, after removing all inference reasoning (inductive,deductive,abductive)? It seems to me nothing left but definition of notion and reference of object. e.g
Bachelor is unmarried.
This is a table. (poiting at the table)

In other word, intellection is some sentence that I understand immediate when I get the meaning of each composition of them —— meaning of 'bachelor', 'unmarried' 'table'. In your terminology 'presupposed term and concept'.
I am skeptical this notion would be what BouJour and other foundamentalists (for example George Bealer) propose as a foundation for knowledge(take it as justified beliefs). For one thing, the truthness of such propositions seems too trivial to be a souce of evidence. The proposition 'bachelor is married .' despite its trueness takes me to no further belief. Additionally, it is true that the fact that even such proposition can be fallible does not follow that it cannot be the source of justification, but it obviously does not grant any positive epistomolocial status, right? So maybe in case ratiocination is available it should be prefered and we should be more careful when intellection is applied.

Anyway thanks again for your explaining the notions of ratiocination and intellection. And I am quite curious the history of these notions in philosophical discourse, since I have rarely encountered them in readings. Have a good day!

In other word, intellection is some sentence... — Charlie Lin

The first thing to remember is that intellection and ratiocination are intellectual acts, not sentences.

When trying to understand intellection I think the modern mind must begin with that last sentence of my post, "We must hold that intellection exists if we are to hold that ratiocination is possible." Ratiocination without intellection is like a house without a foundation.

In other word, intellection is some sentence that I understand immediate when I get the meaning of each composition of them —— meaning of 'bachelor', 'unmarried' 'table'. In your terminology 'presupposed term and concept'. — Charlie Lin

The apprehension of simple concepts is only one form of intellection, but it is perhaps the easiest to understand. So yes, apprehending the meaning of a term such as 'bachelor' is an instance of intellection. This is not to say that we automatically understand what a bachelor is without experience, evidence, arguments, etc. Yet two people could be presented with the exact same evidence and arguments, and one might make the jump to understand what a bachelor is while the other does not. The first has intellected the meaning of 'bachelor' while the second has not.

For one thing, the truthness of such propositions seems too trivial to be a souce of evidence. The proposition 'bachelor is married .' despite its trueness takes me to no further belief. — Charlie Lin

Syllogisms are built up piece by piece. If you do not understand what a bachelor is, then you will be unable to understand every argument which makes use of the concept of bachelorhood. Furthermore, every single argument presupposes a number of atomic concepts. Thus if you have no atomic concepts to work from, every single argument and conclusion in the world will be inaccessible to you. Because of this it is a grave mistake to suppose that the intellection or understanding of concepts has no epistemic value.

It is sometimes helpful to note that arguments have, at minimum, two premises and one conclusion. Think of modus ponens and modus tollens, which are two of the most basic kinds of arguments. But if you drill down and try to defend each premise of an argument with a set of second-order arguments, and each premise of the second-order arguments with a set of third-order arguments, and so on, you will have arguments (of ever-increasing cardinality) unto infinity and your conclusion will never ultimately be justified. Arguments themselves presuppose a non-argument (non-composite) foundation, and just as arguments presuppose terms, so too does ratiocination presuppose intellection. This is especially relevant to foundationalists like BonJour.

...It would be like saying, "I am going to build a house out of bricks, and every brick will rest on two lower bricks!" For some reason it never occurs to our age to ask the question, "Won't the bottom bricks have to rest on something other than bricks?!"

But after all what exactly is intellection, after removing all inference reasoning (inductive,deductive,abductive)? — Charlie Lin

A lot of philosophers do think that intellection is a kind of induction, and I am sympathetic to that idea. But induction is a very mysterious and ill-defined thing. It is not even clear that it ought to be called inferential reasoning.

And I am quite curious the history of these notions in philosophical discourse, since I have rarely encountered them in readings. — Charlie Lin

I am currently deprived of my physical books, but one philosopher who tackles this with BonJour in mind is Dr. Michael J. Winter. If memory serves, he has a chapter in a book or edited volume devoted specifically to this topic, and he grounds the account in a form of induction.

Intuitions, in the philosophical sense, are what one intellectual immediately grasps of the situation (whereas, in colloquial speech, it can also mean 'going with your gut'): this is why it is sometimes called 'an intellectual seeming'.

Intuitions, like reason, are fundamental to the way by which we come to know the world and, as such, are presupposed as reliable as opposed to determining how reliable they actually are. For example, if I start noticing that my intuitions are causing me to stray incredibly far from the truth (to the point, perhaps, that I am endangering myself constantly), then that is itself an intuition. Likewise, to say that intuitions are reliable or unreliable is to intuit that--thusly, the very affirmation or denial of it presupposes it in the first (and that's why I like to think of intuitions are simply inevitable).

Because you can never know a single thing without intuiting, I find epistemic conservatism to be quite appealing; that is, that one should use their intuitions until they can be countered with evidence that demonstrates their unreliability (which would itself use other intuitions).

Perhaps why we inevitably use intuitions is because there is much more processing occurring when we view reality than what we have introspective access to and, thusly, we can't retrospectively cognize 100% accurately at why we intuited what we did (at a deeper level).