I am writing in response to my prior essays, “The Philosophy of Intuition” and “Follow Up to the Philosophy of Intuition,” with the intent of designating new and relevant cases to my argument on intuition.
As I have posited as of late, we are continually guided by our intuition, which always feels the same to us. I have pondered the extent of an intuition, in order to see that this is not a facet of intuition at all, but rather the product of some rational, intellectual faculty. However, another point of contention arises when we assume that our intuition is objective truth. I have previously stated that, perhaps, the intuitive sensations that present themselves to us are always trustworthy, since they would have undergone the subconscious process of the soul and subsequently been rationalized before becoming evident. But I realize that, while this is the truth, it is not so subconsciously of the soul as I have first suggested.
Take, for instance, an individual who believes that the Earth is flat, merely based on intuition. If we are to take rationality—in this case science—off the table, this makes perfect intuitive sense. That the Earth is not flat may suggest, with current scientific understanding, that the Earth is round and continually spinning, which means that we are always in motion. But pure intuition might say that we cannot always be moving because, as I sit in this chair writing this essay, I do not feel the wind on my face or my surroundings become closer or more distant. I am not experiencing things that would rationally imply that I am in motion, so therefore my intuition has no information to prevent it from emerging.
So, why would the vast majority of us, with any sense, believe that the Earth is round and that we are always in motion, rejecting the idea that it is flat, if we are to trust every intuitive thought that emerges to us when put at odds with rationality? For in such a case, rationality and intuition might reach the same conclusion, though it is not one that most people could feasibly subscribe to. My philosophy is that we actually have two tiers of this aforementioned rational process.
The first of these tiers, which I will call empirical rationality, is precisely what I have described before—we subconsciously take an intuition and rationalize it to ourselves. This occurs fully or partially beyond our active cognition as well, and is usually based on what is readily perceptible via the senses. Because of this rational process, we can conclude that the intuition itself always feels the same until it has crossed through this tier of rationality. Finally, empirical rationality is significant because it negates intuitions that may be misaligned with reality, since we know that we are always experiencing intuition. In this particular instance, intuition does not necessarily cross the barrier of our cognition of it.
I am sure that the concern here is obvious, given the parameters of this first tier. Empirical rationality, in and of itself, does not exemplify that we are often questioning what the soul is telling us, yet this is evidently so.
I believe that we should be skeptical of our intuition to an extent. And I should add that such skepticism is intrinsic to the first tier of rationality, yet it does not extend past rational facts that are also empirically intuitive. Therefore, the solution to what is really going on between myself and my intuition is something deeper, based on the assimilation of knowledge. This is called cognitive rationality—the second tier of our rational process in terms of understanding and representing an intuition.
Consequently, in order to, say, determine that the Earth is certainly not flat, we are relying on cognitive rationality to disengage our beliefs from our intuition that is supported by empirical rationality. That something abstract, like morality, is intuitive is a separate concern—one that is also separate from my seemingly similar discussion of a deep emotion such as love in my initial Follow Up. The distinction I would draw is that love is not purely intuitive and can be empirically represented in our rationalizing of it, whereas morality must be cognitively rationalized, based on this new standard of skepticism of our intuition.
There is far more to explore here. The human soul is nuanced and convoluted, and I hope that we can be introspective in order to get to the bottom of this ubiquitous experience.
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