Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Intuition vs. Rationality

In his introduction to the book Who We Are, Pojman lists eight questions of philosophy. One of which is, how shall we live? As our instructor brought up, Socrates claimed that an unexamined life is not worth living. The discussion that followed really intrigued me. It amazes me how our conversation branches in class, and the topics that come up. At one point in our discussion the difference between intuition and rationality came up. I will naively admit that I never saw such a large differentiation between the two. Some difference maybe, but technicalities at the most. Perhaps that is because there are such broad definitions for both of them. For intuition one definition I found was a quick, keen insight. Another then explained intuition as a direct perception of truth independent of any reasoning process. In class intuition was described both as ignorant, and as part of human nature. Now while intuition could be both ignorant and a part of human nature, I think that it is not a matter of ignorance. I think intuition is a natural characteristic of humans that is more like a gut feeling about something. 
It's possible that intuition and rationality are linked rather than one or the other. Using our rationalizing about our intuitions, or using a gut feeling to rationalize something. I see them more as dependents of each other in many cases, rather than two separate entities. 
Those were my thoughts anyway. Please feel free to tell me what you think : )

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