Thanks!

there is no answer to the question, why? Why does the leg opposite the largest angle of a triangle have to be the longest leg?
This is about as close to a genuine intuition that I can imagine. I don't deny that such things are intuitively apprehended. — Constance

This much of your post seems to be in almost complete agreement with me. The only difference between us seems to be your "as close . . . that I can imagine." Why not just say "This is a genuine/correct intuition," as I do?

Could not your "there is no answer. . . . apprehended" be paraphrased “The correctness of this geometric principle/proposition cannot ultimately be proved by any discursive argument. Its correctness ultimately rests on intuition, Such intuitions are intuitions that almost everyone has, and they are correct intuitions" – ?

"we are 'shown' things through intuition, but intuition is not that which is shown."

Can you refer me to where Kant says this? Anyway, I agree.

"[Intuition's] foundation is unknowable."

I gave my opinion earlier: "An intuition comes out of my unconscious in some way that I cannot understand. But I think it must originate in some way that I cannot presently understand – must be reducible to something that I cannot presently understand – but that I may (or may not) later be able to understand."

I wouldn't give up on eventually understanding.

"Therefore, intuitions are constructs, and therefore contingent."

Are you still representing Kant here? I don’t see why this should necessarily follow from "[Intuition's] foundation is unknowable." Let’s take my Jesus example above (which I don’t believe in, but which I think is a coherent story – not empirically true, but not a story that violates logic). Jesus may not know where his intuitions came from, and may never know (in which case they are unknowable to him or perhaps to any human being); nevertheless, God put those intuitions in him; so they are not just a construct, and not contingent.

"[Intuition's] foundation is unknowable. Therefore, intuitions are constructs, and therefore contingent."

Would this be your answer to my "Why not just say ‘This is a genuine/correct intuition,’ as I do?"

I don’t see how any uncertainty in knowing the foundation of truth necessarily makes truth contingent. Again, my Jesus example. The Jesus in my story may not know where his intuitions came from, and may never know (in which case they are unknowable to him or perhaps to any human being); nevertheless, God put those intuitions in him; so they are not just a construct, and not contingent.

“2) Enter Derrida's world. . . . This makes all truth contingent.

Can't we distinguish between truth and knowing truth? Derrida must have had some answer to this, but was it a convincing answer?


If I understand correctly, Wittgenstein's main works were the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. Can you tell me what writing of his in those books or elsewhere best addresses my concerns?

"But it is the very notion of intuition itself that is at issue. Does the concept make sense at all . . ."

Thanks. Your later lines make it clear that you do not deny the existence of intuitions. Since you think they exist, you must think that they make sense IN SOME WAY – at least as "premonitions and feelings" that don't necessarily amount to anything, as you say.

We seem to agree that intuitions are feelings that exist. We differ in that I think some intuitions are correct, that is, objectively true, and that such intuitions don't just occur randomly, at least not always randomly.

"If you try to give an example of an intuition, can it be defended as truly irreducible?"

I, at least, do not try to defend it as irreducible. As I said, "I think it must originate in some way that I cannot presently understand – must be reducible to something that I cannot presently understand . . ."

Just to show that this thinking is not incoherent, let me give an example that a Christian might give. I think a Christian might say, "Jesus's moral intuitions, the feelings he would immediately have when any moral issue was brought to him, were invariably correct. There is a reason why they were invariably correct, and the reason is that God intentionally created/fathered Jesus so as to have correct moral intutions. Jesus's moral intuitions were not irreducible – they were reducible at least to an act of creation/fathering by God."

I am not a Christian, but I think that while people may start out with all kinds of bizarre moral intuitions, we can all develop ourselves so that our moral intuitions, the feelings we immediately have when facing any moral issue, are increasingly correct.

If I understand correctly, Wittgenstein's main works were the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. Can anyone tell me what writing of his in those books or elsewhere best addresses my concerns?

Thanks. I need a few clarifications, but let me start with the easy part, which is also a necessary part. Do you mean that correct intuitions (which I believe exist), would be monumentally important, as if God had written them on tablets?

I believe that correct intuitions exist and are monumentally important. But I don't see why for every correct intuition that exists (there is a maximum of one correct intuition per issue), I should consider all the many incorrect intuitions that might exist on the same issue to be monumentally important.

I would not call any intuition, correct or incorrect, important or not, irreducible. My intuitions are by definition feelings (of a certain sort) whose origin is presently unknown to me. An intuition comes out of my unconscious in some way that I cannot understand. But I think it must originate in some way that I cannot presently understand – must be reducible to something that I cannot presently understand – but that I may (or may not) later be able to understand.

Epistemology is the science of knowing, and knowing is possible only in the mind. The mind plays thousands of tricks, but still, knowing is possible only in the mind. Meditation is designed to cast sunlight on the tricks as they originate in the mind, so that the tricks shrivel up and fall away. So to me, it seems that meditation is indispensable for epistemology.

You mean to say that "positive feelings" are not a good yardstick for morality. — TheMadFool

I mean that they ARE a good yardstick for the meaning of the word "morality," but not a good yardstick for which actions are genuinely moral. I think that some actions are genuinely moral and some are genuinely immoral – in other words, I believe that an objective morality exists. (This discussion all goes back to my saying "Intuitions can become more and more correct. . . . I think that we all, to different degrees, possess deep in our minds a capacity for more and more accurate feelings of knowing," and your feeling that that statement of mine did not jibe with something else I had said.)

Let me illustrate. Suppose there are a dozen Americans and a dozen Iranians who agree with me that "good" should be applied to actions that elicit in the speaker a positive feeling – not an emotion exactly, but definitely a feeling, not part of any rational process, a unique feeling often called a moral intuition – and "bad" should refer to actions that elicit in the speaker a unique negative feeling. If the action is one's own, the mechanism that causes the positive moral intuition or the negative moral intuition to arise is known as the person's conscience. So all these people will completely understand what the others mean when they use the words "good" and "bad".

Nevertheless, those particular dozen Americans will say, "I did something good today. I feel good about it, moral about it. I helped a couple in some fundamentalist country have a same-sex wedding." And those particular dozen Iranians will say, "I did something good today. I feel good about it, moral about it. I helped get a couple hanged for having a same-sex wedding."

Yet I would not say that all those people's moral intuitions are equally valid (moral relativism).

Let's find the most uncontroversial example we can. If someone experiences the negative feeling, the "This is bad" moral intuition, when they see someone torturing puppies for fun, I think that is an objectively correct moral intuition. If the torturer and his friends have a different moral intuition about it, I think their intuition is simply incorrect, and should not be framed as "their truth" or "all right from their point of view."

And I think that any person's moral intuitions can become more and more correct. When asked me how they could become more correct, I replied, "I think that the most basic answer is meditation, but I would like to say a little more." Then other participants sidetracked me from that discussion.

We can all agree on word definitions, for the sake of communication, without agreeing on anything else. People of all cultures can agree that "good" should be associated with a positive quasi-emotional feeling, even if in some people that feeling is elicited when they hear "marry whomever you love," and in others when they hear "throw homosexuals off rooftops." I wouldn't see any value in lack of agreement that "good" should be associated with a positive quasi-emotional feeling, and thus people talking past each other.

I.e., I wouldn't call people talking past each other, due to lack of agreement about defs., "richness," because to me "richness" has a positive meaning.

I guess I now understand what you're saying, but – perhaps changing the subject – wouldn't you say that in order for the terms "good" and "bad" to be most useful, to be truly normative (using your examples), "good" in Iran would have be associated not only with the Quran, but also with a positive quasi-emotional feeling, and "good" in America would have be associated not only with equality, but also with a positive quasi-emotional feeling?

moral values vary with culture with all of them being as equally right. However, for that to be true, the notion of morality has to be universal in scope i.e. every culture must mean the same thing when they use the words, "morality", — TheMadFool

So you are saying that –

moral values vary with culture

– and –

every culture must mean the same thing when they use the words, "morality" . . .

– can both be true at the same time (and must be in order for W to be correct). In order for both to be true at the same time, your "moral values" must mean something different from your "'morality', 'good', and 'bad'."

Does your "'morality', 'good', and 'bad'" refer to CONCEPTS, while "moral values" refers to SPECIFIC ISSUES?

Would you say, for instance, "In Mexico they consider bull-fighting good and abortion bad, and in NYC they consider abortion good and bull-fighting bad, but in both cultures, when people hear 'bad' their minds become clouded and there's a yucky feeling in the stomach, and when people hear 'good' their minds become expanded and radiant" – ?

good and bad refer to the same things, — TheMadFool

Do you mean "good and bad refer to the same thing [singular]," which would mean "good and bad refer to good-bad," or do you really mean "thingS," in which case the things would be something apart from good and bad? If you mean the latter, what would be examples of the things?

If you subscribe to total moral and intellectual relativism, then of course there is no such thing as a correct intuition.

Just a partial answer for now:

How did you come to the conclusion that "Intuitions can become more and more correct" when you know that "intuitions are not objective [Edit: objectively] reliable"?

The way it seems to me, the two statements made by you (above) don't jibe. — TheMadFool

Okay, I have now edited one of those sentences again. Now it is:

"intuitions are not objective [Edit: objectively] [Edit: 100%] reliable"

That is, "intuitions are not objectively 100% reliable."

I think that a person who holds within themselves an incorrect intuition can eventually find in themselves a more correct intuition on the same topic, and later a still more correct intuition.

I doubt that the person can ever find in themselves a 100% correct intuition, but who knows. Maybe the Buddha had intuitions, or at least moral intuitions, that were 100% correct.

Thanks for these two posts, and I may get back later to these and some points in your earlier posts.

To all: Sorry to have written so much already, but, does anyone here know of any formal papers that argue that propositions such as "'2 + 2 = 4' cannot be proved, but rather rests on intuition" and "'A square must be rectangular' cannot be proved, but rather rests on intuition" are correct, but trivial?

I appreciate your making an effort to understand my argument, and largely succeeding. I would like to invite and and others to try to state my argument in their own words ("steelman" my argument).

I don't know how intuition and "psychological well-being and development" are related but we do feel upbeat when our intuition is right on the money, hits the bullseye — TheMadFool

This is not what I meant. Let me try to summarize my argument. To see what I meant, please see my 5. below.

Perhaps this is related to your attempt to link intuition with "psychological well-being and development" — TheMadFool

Please see my 5. below:

1. "2 + 2 = 4" (with or without 's "cyclic group" qualifier) cannot ultimately be known. Its knowledge ultimately rests on a feeling of knowing, which is a kind of intuition, and intuitions are not objective [Edit: objectively] [Edit: 100%] reliable as justifications for knowledge (because, for instance,

The fact that we have near-zero knowledge of intuition is a major stumbling block in advocating it as a reliable technique for problem solving. — TheMadFool

). Intuitions can become more and more correct, however (see my 4. below).

2. My 1. above is trivial in one sense, the sense that admitting it should not cause us to hesitate for a moment to rely on 2 + 2 = 4 when we're planning a landing of some kind on Mars.

3. There is another sense in which my 1. above is not trivial – the sense that admitting it motivates us to want to know practically how to avoid/prevent occurrence of the "feeling of knowing" neurological event when we are contemplating 2 + 2 = 5, and thus may lead us to learn how to avoid/prevent such occurrence. This is of epistemological significance.

4. There is another sense also in which my 1. above is not trivial – the sense that admitting it motivates us to want to improve the reliability of our feelings of knowing. I think that we all, to different degrees, possess deep in our minds a capacity for more and more accurate feelings of knowing – a capacity that I would say, in line with Aristotle, is a combination of innate and learned. This is of epistemological significance.

5. Introspecting (initially prompted by trying to understand our intuitions, as by whatever prompts it) can lead to greater psychological well-being and development. This is not, or not entirely, of epistemological significance. Let’s call it fringe benefits of the quest for more correct intuitions.

As a brief argument in support of my 4. and 5. above, I would say that introspecting, particularly through a regular practice of meditation, serves to throw sunshine, the best disinfectant, on kinds of psychological clutter that interfere with the free, efficient, and thus also healthy movement of mental energy. Just one example of psychological clutter would be an emotional investment in the correctness of some political or academic ideology. The removal of psychological clutter allows us to access deeper levels of our minds than we had accessed before, a kind of development. The deeper levels, besides being repositories of more correct intuitions, are generally more peaceful and more characterized by a sense of radiance.

Learning to count does not appeal to an intuition, it is learning to behave in a certain way. — Banno

Right. But when I said "it appeals to my intuition, "it" refers to an argument that draws on my already-learned behavior of counting, doesn't it?

Thanks. You have gotten me started thinking about some concepts that were new to me. I haven't understood everything. But I have understood correctly, haven't I, that among other things you have provided what may be some wonderful arguments to the effect that 2 + 2 = 4? They look like wonderful arguments, but arguments nonetheless. For an argument to convince me means, doesn't it, that it succeeds in triggering in my brain a pattern of synaptic firings that result in a subjective feeling of knowing (which is an intuition)?

Perhaps the best way to understand the role of the feeling of knowing is to look at this sentence of yours:

"the intuition is mostly sound if it is confirmed through a comparatively small set of instances . . ."

Couldn't we paraphrase this as "the feeling of knowing is mostly sound if it is confirmed through a comparatively small set of instances that result again in that feeling of knowing" – ?

I don't see how we can escape from the essential role of a pattern of synaptic firings that results in a subjective feeling of knowing. And then the problem is, as I suggested earlier, that if one day my brain functions differently than it usually does, that pattern might be triggered not by 2 + 2 = 4, but by 2 + 2 = 5. Evolution has guaranteed that such days will be rare, but is a high order of probability the best we can do in trying to prove that 2 + 2 = 4?

If I'm missing something, I hope that someone can pinpoint what that is.

It's 11:30 pm where I am. I'll look for responses in the morning my time.

For now, I just want to isolate one thing in your replies and use that as a springboard:

"axiomatic choices and rule selections. . . . is subject to implicit neurological representations"

Let's say that TheMadFool's "I I [2] + I I [2] = I I I I [4]" is the very best rational (as opposed to intuitive) proof there will ever be that 2 + 2 = 4 (at least as long as one is not in a cyclic group).

Though that is the very best rational proof there will ever be that 2 + 2 = 4, it seems to me that all that proof really achieves is to trigger in my brain a neurological event that neurologist Robert Burton calls a "feeling of knowing." (Sam Harris once referred briefly to this "feeling of knowing" – not specifically related to 2 + 2 = 4 – and did not provide any further details. But for me that is enough.)

To admit that that feeling of knowing is ultimately the only substantiation of 2 + 2 = 4 should not cause us to hesitate for a moment to rely on 2 + 2 = 4 when we're planning a landing of some kind on Mars, and in that sense the admission is trivial. But in the sense that we would want to know practically how to avoid/prevent occurrence of that same neurological event when we are contemplating 2 + 2 = 5; and in the sense that there might be tremendous benefits, including unexpected ones, if we could learn more, through brain scans (a kind of INDIRECT learning) about how those feelings of knowing occur in our brains in real time; or if, even better, we could introspect enough to have some DIRECT apprehension of how those feelings of knowing occur in our brains in real time; in those senses, the admission would not be trivial at all.

Thanks. I plan to get back to this, but I'll be tied up for some hours now.

Thanks. I plan to get back to this, but I'll be tied up for some hours now. Specifically regarding how it is possible to improve one's intuitions, I think that the most basic answer is meditation, but I would like to say a little more.

people don't believe you can build a society based on intuition. And thís is exactly the difference between science and philosophy. — TaySan

Thanks. I'm not sure if I understand. "people don't believe" sounds like "Nobody, or hardly anybody, believes." Yet doesn't "thís is exactly the difference between science and philosophy" imply that either scientists or philosophers do believe (you can build a society based on intuition)? Scientists take it as a fact that one and one is two. Is that believing in building a society based on intuition?

Thanks. That is very educational, and I certainly haven't digested it all yet. But at this point, let me just ask, does "those statements" in your first sentence refer to –

"'2 + 2 = 4' cannot be proved, but rather rests on intuition"

"'A square must be rectangular' cannot be proved, but rather rests on intuition"

– or to –

"2 + 2 = 4"

"A square must be rectangular"

– ?

Thanks very much for your reply. I would characterize your four sticks as "a very good argument that 2 + 2 = 4." But why do I call it "a very good argument"? Because it appeals to my intuition and only because it appeals to my intuition, I believe.

Regarding definitions, "2 is defined such that when added to another 2 it equals 4, and 4 is defined as the sum of two '2's' " would also be a good argument, but again because it appeals to my intuition and only because it appeals to my intuition.

"intuition isn't 'rejected' outright. . . . The fact that we have near-zero knowledge of intuition is a major stumbling block in advocating it as a reliable technique for problem solving" is an answer that gets to the heart of my question (why academic philosophy seems to regard focus on intuition as a trivial and adolescent preoccupation). Does anyone here know of any formal papers that discuss that stumbling-block? But if that is the best response that academic philosophy has, I would reply:

1. problem-solving is not the only value that is relevant here; recognizing intuition's utility as a problem-solving tool can lead to less preoccupation with the problems, and more curiosity about intuition itself, and discovery of the value of introspecting (prompted by trying to understand our intuitions) in terms of psychological well-being and development

2. I think that introspecting, prompted by trying to understand our intuitions or by whatever prompts it, will help lead us to more and more correct intuitions – particularly, more and more correct moral intuitions.

[EDIT: I think that the observation "'2 + 2 = 4' cannot be proved, but rather rests on intuition," may be considered true but trivial, and may be considered trivial because you can't take it any further. But I would say that while you can't take THE OBSERVATION any further, you can improve your intuitions.]