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Abeerah Tariq 22659
Critically explain the epistemological significance of intuitionist cognition. You can use
Henri Bergson's intuitionist theory and his critique of traditional epistemology. You can
also discuss a couple of movies to consolidate your perspective.
Intuition is one of the explored cognitive faculties of human knowledge that accounts for insights
of knowledge stemming from deeper subconscious activity. Intuition is premonition derived from
available data, without the recourse of conscious reasoning. It is often referred to as a mysterious
experience or feeling through which some future events are sensed or predicted before they become
reality, informally known as a ‘hunch’ or ‘gut feeling’. La corazonada, meaning ‘the hunch’, is an
excellent movie portraying reliance on intuition. The police detectives Fransisco Juanez and
Manuela Pelari each follow their gut feeling to investigate murder cases which makes them
successful.
According to Freud’s psychoanalytical model, human personality is the trichotomous experience
of consciousness, preconsciousness, and subconsciousness. Consciousness is awareness and to be
aware is sensory qualia, preconsciousness is what we can recall after some stress on our brain
however, subconsciousness contains knowledge we might not be aware of that we know and
intuition is presented by the subconscious. The subconscious constitutes above 98%, while
consciousness is less than 2% of total human knowledge. The subconscious mind can perform
complex operations, make connections, and create understandings that the conscious mind can’t
handle. Intuitionist knowledge is abrupt, direct, and self-evident. The core of intuitionist
knowledge lies in immediacy which contrasts with mediate, inferential, deductive reasoning.
Directness refers to the images of recollection, and creative imagination. E.g., composers like
Mozart were able to "hear" some of their musical compositions internally before they wrote them
and Beethoven created the best symphony after he turned deaf. Self-evidence claims that there is
a kind of knowledge that is not labored, that is not derived, that cannot be proved because it
constitutes the very premises of our reasoning contrarily. Intuition is also known as a hunch; it is
how our mind makes something suddenly intelligible. An aspect of a hunch includes problemsolving, after a long period of pondering about a problem people suddenly "perceive" a solution.
Sometimes this happens during sleep; the thinker awakes in the morning with the solution of which
he had no idea about the previous day. The final "clicking" of our mind may not be fully intelligible
even to ourselves. As Francis McConnell recalls, the subconscious mind can do creative work
given adequate data to work with. Intuition is considered very much like an extra-sensory
perception. There is statistical evidence for the occurrence of clairvoyance, telepathy, and
precognition, which cannot be plausibly explained within the traditional scientific framework.
Lastly, there is a concept of mystical or trans-empirical intuition. Here, the target or object of the
intuition is claimed to be something that is absolutely beyond the reach of ordinary experience and
reasoning, something which cannot be checked empirically, it is an independent way of getting at
the truth; like a graphologist telling a person’s character after only viewing the handwriting or
religious mysticism; people trying to attain knowledge of God or the Absolute by intuition. Herbert
Feigl questions the interpretation of intuitive experiences especially that of “religious realists”. He
argues that they do not account for plausible explanations of a naturalistic atheist but from a
scientific perspective attitudes are explainable based on psychological premises. Most analytical
thinkers are of opinion that what cannot be expressed is not knowledge. Intuitionists censure
empirical and rational knowledge. For intuitionists knowledge from sense experience (5 senses) is
always inferior because synthetic unity received from different observations is always different
from partiality. If we consider sight, we only see one part of a thing at a time, for example, an artist
will only capture one aspect of Notre-Dame it may be the tower. The tower is inseparably united
to the building, which is inseparably united to the ground, to its surroundings, to the whole of Paris.
Thus, the artist only sketches the silhouette of the tower which does not provide him the whole. In
reason, inductive deductive and abductive arguments are used, here too we always vacillate
between parts (premises or individual observations) and (conclusion) totality. We think of
conclusion as the logical outcome. Mathematical problems are an example of reason, we break
equations and problems into parts. Most mathematical problems would remain unsolved and most
theories unchecked if left to intuition.
Henri Bergson, an evolutionary philosopher, somewhat similarly to Immanuel Kant criticized pure
reason, in doing so he has called attention to a new way of looking at “Reality”. Reality is durationa continual flow of change. For Bergson, knowledge begins with the perception of distinct objects
which is shaped along with the needs of action. Intellect often has to choose between various
courses of action (Bergson, Creative Evolution) as it views reality through a matrix of space that
is not part of reality. Using this “infinitely divisible” medium as a form of perception allows us to
consider a potential line of action in which there is hesitation to our response; consciousness.
Bergson considers the movement of an object in space, which if stabilized, cannot be known
meaningfully. We view the object in our rhythm, by compressing the many instants of its rhythm
into our one perception, rather than in the rhythm of its duration. Thus, perception gives us a part
of reality. Many observations can lead to synthetic unity, but Reality is not a synthetic unity;
Bergson claims truth is never given in units. Intellect recognizes perception as instances of general
ideas. Conceptual knowledge or intellect is symbolic, it consists of a series of ideas. Each idea is
expressed through a word and every word stands for some simple or complex idea or thought. He
criticizes intellect, which functions analytically, saying it stabilizes truth by breaking it into parts
and tries to explain each unit with the aid of symbols and concepts and there-by misses the inherent
pulsation of movement, creating fallacious ideas of metaphysical objects. Time is not a sum or
total of spatialized moments or units; it endures and flows without ceasing and without any pauses
(Matter and Memory), he emphasizes that the whole is never stationary or immobile that can be
comprehended in one unit of thought. As established above ideas are partial pictures of stabilized
Reality, they cannot capture or preserve Reality that is living and enduring. Bergson argues Reality
is a whole, it is never complete; it is always in flux growing, enduring, or changing. Of the many
critical comments, it is argued as to what words can be used to describe a whole that changes
before it is grasped?
Intuition is a cognitive tendency fit to grasp Reality as life and duration. Bergson looks at intuition
as a superior kind of experience, it is higher than sensation and perception. It does not apprehend
bits of truth, it perceives truth as a whole, absolute, and gives knowledge of totality. Intuitionist
knowledge is similar to Divine Knowledge as it is Absolute. The intellect works on matter and
grasps the immobile contrastingly, intuition works on the life and grasps the mobile he, therefore,
criticizes empirical and rational cognition. For Bergson intuitive experience is a living experience
of a living Reality which he calls "intellectual sympathy". The knower becomes one with the
known through empathy, this means there is no mediation between knower (cognitive human
subject) and known (object). Tarey Zameen Par is an excellent example of empathy. The teacher
understands the situation of the kid once he becomes one with him. Empathy is putting yourself in
place of others (Bergson, Time and Free Will) and coincidence with the person himself would
alone give the absolute. Absolute knowledge is attributed to states of mind, in sympathy, one
inserts himself in with those states by an effort of imagination experiences from within. In effect,
Bergson was not satisfied with the time-honored methods of realizing knowledge. He claimed
description, history, and analysis leave us here in the relative, being internal constitutes the essence
of Reality so perception and reason are adequate for scientific pursuits but they are not appropriate
to grasp Reality. To be more precise, in Bergson’s theory, there is no dichotomy of subject and
object.
However, there was huge criticism of Henri Bergson’s philosophic method and intuition. The
principal weakness of intuition as knowledge is that the insights produced have an equal
probability of being wrong as right. Leszek Kolakowski charges Bergson with a lack of applicable
‘method’ apart from his own results. He reasoned that the intuitional method, beyond interpersonal
or aesthetic empathy, is impossible. Common-sense knowledge, and to a much vaster extent
scientific knowledge, goes beyond intuition. Bergson was criticized that each individual is limited
by his mental horizon (experience). This means he has limited access as each individual has his
own specific point of entry into the whole, he can get only a partial view of Reality. Further, if
each individual grasps a unique experience it would imply that we all have different views of
Reality in our own ways doesn’t accomplish as Reality. Many may conclude that Bergson’s
method is incapable of yielding results. Some argue intuition is irrational and a dead end. Bergson
denies any validity to intellect and science however, science from Bergson’s epoch has evolved
and advanced with the aid of technology. Now science has the most answers to questions, from
biology to space, and more. In his work Introduction to Metaphysics Bergson rightfully says
“Metaphysics... is the science which claims to dispense with symbols”. There is one reality, which
we all seize from within, by intuition, and not by simple analysis. It is our personality in its flowing
through time. Herbert Feigl and Kolakowski counter that inconsistently with the first
pronouncement, this description is given with the help of words and sentences which are purely
symbolic. Secondly, the prime illustration for intuition by identification is self-awareness. If
"identity" is understood in the strict sense of logical, numerical identity, then identification with
one's direct experience can amount to no more than just living through one's experience; and, if
the analysis is accepted, this does not by itself constitute knowledge at all. Even such introspective
or phenomenological descriptions as Bergson provides utilize analysis, classification, and
symbolization. They are claims of knowledge by acquaintance, but not merely acquaintance in the
sense of pure, direct experience.
In conclusion, Bergson’s understanding of reality, a living, the enduring whole is grasped in a
unique way, intuition. It truly captures Reality with its life and vigor. His criticism of perceptual
and conceptual knowledge that such knowledge is partial and artificial is true. It can’t be denied
that the efficacy of anything in totality is diametrically opposed to the efficacy of the same thing
in parts. For example, a flower with dissected parts would never be aesthetically pleasing as
compared to when presented as a whole. It is important to note that the whole is different from the
combination of parts. We should aim to learn the limitations of each epistemological paradigm and
combine knowledge from each paradigm to anticipate the error and advantages to make informed
decisions, better arguments and to perceive the people around us and our reality in our best
interests.
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