The authors examined cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning among East Asian (Chinese and Korean), Asian American, and European American university students. We investigated categorization (Studies 1 and 2), conceptual structure (Study 3), and deductive reasoning (Studies 3 and 4). In each study a cognitive conflict was activated between formal and intuitive strategies of reasoning. European Americans, more than Chinese and Koreans, set aside intuition in favor of formal reasoning. Conversely, Chinese and Koreans relied on intuitive (...) strategies more than European Americans. Asian Americans' reasoning was either identical to that of European Americans, or intermediate. Differences emerged against a background of similar reasoning tendencies across cultures in the absence of conflict between formal and intuitive strategies. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explore the distinction between reason (ratio) and intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) in Spinoza’s Ethics in order to explain the superior affective power of the latter over the former. In addressing this fundamental but relatively unexplored issue in Spinoza scholarship, I suggest that these two kinds of adequate knowledge differ not only in terms of their method, but also with respect to their content. I hold that unlike reason, which is a universal knowledge, (...) class='Hi'>intuitive knowledge descends to a level of particularity, including the adequate knowledge of one’s own essence as it follows directly from God, which is a superior form of self-knowledge. Since, for Spinoza, there is an intrinsic relationship between the pursuit of knowledge and how we live our lives, my interpretation of these two ways of knowing is that they are at the same time two ways of living. (shrink)

According to one highly influential approach to moral responsibility, human beings are responsible (eligible to be praised or blamed) for what they do because they are _responsive to reasons _(Fischer & Ravizza 1998). However, this amounts to a descriptive assumption about human beings that may not be borne out by the empirical research. According to a recent trend in moral psychology (Haidt 2001), most human judgment is caused by fast, nonconscious, and intuitive processes, rather than explicit, conscious deliberation about (...) one’s reasons. And when humans do engage in explicit deliberation, it primarily serves to provide post hoc rationalization of their intuitive judgments (confabulation). If this is correct, it is tempting to conclude that most of our judgments—and the actions we perform on their basis—are not genuine responses to reasons. The reasons-responsiveness approach would thus appear to be committed to the implausible conclusion that we are not responsible for very much after all, including, most problematically, our implicit biases. I argue that the reasons-responsiveness approach can avoid this conclusion by showing three things: (1) that affective and intuitive processes can be reasons-responsive; (2) that the responsiveness of those processes can be bolstered by the agent’s environment; and (3) that practices like blame are one of the key ways in which human beings are attuned to reasons over time. I argue that the first and second of these items, despite their initial plausibility, are insufficient on their own to explain why humans can be held accountable for things like implicit biases, and that the way forward is to appreciate what holding each other accountable _does—_i.e., its effects. (shrink)

Joshua Greene’s dual process account contends that deontological moral judgments are the result of intuitions that are automatic, emotional and arational. Deontological intuitions cannot be trusted, Greene argues, because they are arationally acquired and deployed. However, the empirical evidence taken to support this view is methodologically flawed and does not support the utilitarianism-rational and deontology-emotional links that dual process theorists postulate. Instead, the available evidence supports a social domain account of moral development, in which the acquisition of moral intuitions is (...) a rational process. That is, one acquires moral intuitions through repeated exposure to and reasoned engagement with moral information. The deployment of moral intuitions is not arational merely because it is not easily open to introspection. Indeed, if introspection were the sine qua non of rationality, then it would follow that the deployment of consequentialist intuitions is also arational. Although deontological intuitions are not infallible, the infirmities of deontological intuitions are equally shared by utilitarian intuitions. Thus, contrary to Greene’s recommendation, one need not abandon her deontological moral intuitions. Instead, intuitions – be they deontological or consequentialist – can be useful tools to guide moral reasoning. (shrink)

Intuition in medical and moral reasoning -- Moral intuitionism -- The place of Aristotelian phronesis in clinical reasoning -- Aristotle's practical syllogism: accounting for the individual through a theory of action and cognition -- Individual and statistical physiognomy: the art and science of making the invisible visible -- Clinical intuition versus statistical reasoning -- Contingency and correlation: the significance of modeling clinical reasoning on statistics -- Abduction: the intuitive support of clinical induction -- Conclusion: medical ethics beyond ontology.

Kant denies that Reason is intuitive, but demands that we must - in some way - 'make' Reason intuitive, and follow its guidance, particularly in matters of morality. In this book, a group of scholars attempt to analyze and explore this central paradox within Kantian thought. Each essay explores the question from a different perspective - from political philosophy, ethics and religion to science and aesthetics. The essays thus also reformulate the core question in different forms, (...) for example, how are we to realize the moral good in personal character, political arrangements, or religious institutions? (shrink)

Note, by Sir D. Ross.--Reason and intuition.--The kinds of belief.--Religious belief.--Conflicts of belief.--The eclipse of cause.--Materialism in politics.--On the need for a social philosophy.--Can philosophy determine what is ethically and socially valuable?--The philosophy of democracy.--The principles and limitations of state action.--Leisure.--Locke's contribution to political theory.--Jeremy Bentham.--The empiricism of J. S. Mill.--Is a science of theology possible?--Will and action in ethics.

We asked college students to make judgments about realistic moral situations presented as dilemmas (which asked for an either/or decision) vs. problems (which did not ask for such a decision) as well as when the situation explicitly included affectively salient language vs. non-affectively salient language. We report two main findings. The first is that there are four different types of cognitive strategy that subjects use in their responses: simple reasoning, intuitive judging, cautious reasoning, and empathic reasoning. We give operational (...) definitions of these types in terms of our observed data. In addition, the four types characterized strategies not only in the whole sample, but also in all of the subsamples in our study. The second finding is that the intuitive judging type comprised approximately 26% of our respondents, while about 74% of our respondents employed one of the three styles of reasoning named above. We think that these findings present an interesting challenge to models of moral cognition which predict that there is either a single, or a single most common, strategy – especially a strategy of relying upon one’s intuitions – that people use to think about moral situations. (shrink)

In general, intuition and demonstration are explained in terms of the class of relations of ideas that remain the same as long as the ideas remain the same. The main negative point is that our concept of a deductively valid argument, even one with necessarily true premises, has little to do with Hume's conception of demonstration. Following Descartes and Locke, the emphasis is on content and certainty, not necessity and formal validity. Two ideas are intuitively related if the relation between (...) them is immediately conceived. Two ideas are demonstratively related if the relation between them is conceived, not immediately, but via other intermediate ideas. The link between each pair of adjacent ideas in the resulting chain must be intuitive. With this background, some of Hume's more infamous claims are explained: we know in advance that two ideas cannot be demonstratively related if we can conceive one without the other; the causal maxim is neither intuitively nor demonstratively known; the only relation capable of sustaining demonstrations is that of quantity and number. (shrink)

ABBREVIATIONS Note. If the bibliography contains only one work by a certain author, and if a certain work in the bibliography is marked with an asterisk, ...

��Is moral judgment accomplished by intuition or conscious reasoning? An answer demands a detailed account of the moral principles in question. We investigated three principles that guide moral judgments: (a) Harm caused by action is worse than harm caused by omission, (b) harm intended as the means to a goal is worse than harm foreseen as the side effect of a goal, and (c) harm involving physical contact with the victim is worse than harm involving no physical contact. Asking whether (...) these principles are invoked to explain moral judgments, we found that subjects generally appealed to the first and third principles in their justifications, but not to the second. This finding has significance for methods and theories of moral psychology: The moral principles used in judgment must be directly compared with those articulated in justification, and doing so shows that some moral principles are available to conscious reasoning whereas others are not. (shrink)

This paper argues that, contrary to common opinion, intuition can result from conscious reasoning. It also discusses why this matters.

In this paper, Leonard Waks investigates connections between listening and expertise or mastery, contrasting approaches from Eastern and Western philosophy. The first section accounts for listening in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, a work addressing themes in Chinese philosophy through metaphor and story narratives. In one story a character named “Confucius” advises a student to fast the mind and listen recklessly. The affinity between reckless and what has been called “apophatic” listening is demonstrated by the shared feature of mental emptiness — (...) listening without the imposition of conceptual categories. The second section demonstrates close affinities between the account of listening and expertise or mastery in the Zhuangzi and in the account of expert perception in contemporary Western philosophy and psychology, as exemplified by phenomenologist Hubert Dreyfus. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza (1998) advance an innovative form of compatibilism between free will and determinism. They characterize the relevant freedom as the control condition necessary...

Language and thought share a unitary cognitive activity, addressed by an interpretative function. This interpretative effort reveals the assonance between the attribution of meaning to an utterance and the discovery of a solution via restructuring in insight problem solving. We suggest a view of complex integrated analytical thinking, which assumes that thinking processes information in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the tasks the subject has to solve, so that reasoning results in a stepwise, rule-based process or in a (...) widespread activity of search where implicit parallel processes are also involved. We investigated the interrelationship between language and thought in insight problem solving, in both its positive (Experiments 1 and 3) and its negative effects (Experiment 2). Our results are discussed in the light of the debate on dual processing theories. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an account of what Kant means by “intuition” [Anschauung] in the Critique of Pure Reason. The issue is whether “intuition” should be understood in terms of (1) singularity (e.g., singular concepts, singular representation, etc.), or (2) immediacy in knowledge. By considering issues intemal to the Critique, such as the nature of transcendental logic, the type of intuition God exhibits, and Kant’s use of the term “Anschauung,” I argue that the most fundamental way to view (...) intuition is in terms of immediacy. More specifically, “immediacy” means that intuition is that through which the existence of an object, or the matter that goes into making an object, is given to the mind. (shrink)

Pascal is well known to be an early modern disciple of Augustine, but it has not always been sufficiently emphasized that Pascal’s Augustinianism differs profoundly from its source in many ways. The following essay examines his re-ordering of Augustine’s psychology and its implications for philosophy and religion in the modern period. For Augustine, intellect and will are equal moments in the activity of mens, but Pascal is radically voluntarist. For him, the will’s relation to the good radically transcends intellect’s relation (...) to being. This moves Pascal to a position closer in some respects to neo-Platonism. It also prevents him from appropriating Augustine’s claim that the triadic human mens is a created analogue of the Trinity. Pascal drops Augustine’s teaching on this point, with profound consequences for his conception of humanity’s relation to God. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 181 On Intuition and Discursive Reasoning in Aristotle. By VICTOR KAL. Philosophia Antiqua, no. 46. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988. Pp. 196. 74 guilders (approx. $37.00). This is a study of Aristotle's logic and psychology of mind which explores a connection between the two. This connection is used, on the one hand, to corroborate the results of the study of the logic and, on the other hand, (...) to elucidate the most controverted text of Aristotle's psychology, De Anima, 3. 5, with its discussion of active mind. Part 1 argues for the dependence of all discursive thinking on non-discursive sources of knowldge, viz., experience and intuition. Part 2, a bridge section, distinguishes logic, epistemology, and psychology: logic studies the forms of reasoning; epistemology studies the connection of reasoning to reality, as Aristotle does notably in Posterior Analytics, 2. 19; and psychology "shows how... cognitive processes... take place from the point of view of physics and First Philosophy " (p. 63). Part 3 investigates the psychology of cognition found in the De Anima and elsewhere and finds in it confirmation of the results of part l. In addition, Kal here offers a new interpretation of what Aristotle means by active mind. In part 1 Kal presents a careful textual study of Aristotle's view of definition, induction, and the syllogism, both dialectical and demonstra· tive, and argues that, as discursve methods, all of them presuppose knowledge already acquired, i.e., first principles that must be known. This raises the question of the origin of such principles, a question which Aristotle addresses and answers in Posterior Analytics, 2. 19. A common interpretation of this difficult chapter holds that first principles are grasped through induction. The text which seems to support this view is found in lines l00b3-5: " Thus it is clear that we necessarily know the first principles by induction; for sensation also produces the universal in this way." Kal argues that this text, when understood according to the indications of its context, does not make induction the source of first principles. Rather, Aristotle's position is that sensation, which gives us the universal, is based on experience (lOOall) and, therefore, an induction, which is also based on experience, also gives the universal (p. 51). Furthermore, Kal finds a much simpler argu· ment against the position that induction is the source of our knowledge of first principles in the beginning of Posterior Analytics, 2. 19, where "Aristotle rejects knowledge based on previous knowledge, and thus induction, as a solution to the problem of the knowledge of the first principles" (p. 52). Induction, then, remains one of the discursive methods, and, as such, depends on a kind of knowledge that is acquired 182 BOOK REVIEWS without being based on previously acquired knowledge. Kai insists that, if knowledge is possible, there must he a non-discursive origin for first principles; and, in his investigation of Aristotle's position, he finds only two such origins-experience and intuition. Sense experience brings the universal to light, although it does not know the universal as such, hut only as an accidental object of sensation. It is intellective intuition (nous) which knows the universal as such (p. 48). Having argued for the primacy of intuition (nous) in part l, Kai turns to the psychology of cognition in part 3. Is the primacy of nous corroborated by Aristotle's understanding of sensation and thinking? Kal finds that it is. From the point of view of logic and epistemology, the non-discursive origin of first principles is an immediate knowledge, a knowledge that does not require a middle term. As Kal puts it, the immediacy of intuition " lies... in the fact that contact is made with the object of knowledge simply, without active intervention of the knower" (p. 59). In receiving the object of knowledge the knower is completely receptive. Similarly, Kal argues, sensation and thinking in the sense of intuitive thought are also completely receptive, and this receptivity confirms the results of part l; cognition when viewed both from the point of view of logic-and epistemology, and from the point of view of psychology reveals the same essential receptivity. Just as Aristotle argues... (shrink)

Humans have a tendency to reason teleologically. This tendency is more pronounced under time pressure, in people with little formal schooling and in patients with Alzheimer’s. This has led some cognitive scientists of religion, notably Kelemen, to call intuitive teleological reasoning promiscuous, by which they mean teleology is applied to domains where it is unwarranted. We examine these claims using Kant’s idea of the transcendental illusion in the first Critique and his views on the regulative function of teleological (...) reasoning in the third Critique. We examine whether a Kantian framework can help resolve the tension between the apparent promiscuity of intuitive teleology and its role in human reasoning about biological organisms and natural kinds. (shrink)

Practical Thought presents a selection of Jonathan Dancy's most important philosophical essays since the late 1970s, focusing on the central themes of his work: metaethics, moral metaphysics, the theory of motivation, and the British Intuitionists. The twenty-four essays in this book chart his intellectual journey..

According to an influential physicalist view, the intuition of distinctness is a cognitive illusion in the sense that it results from fallacious reasoning: we erroneously infer that the referents of phenomenal and physical concepts are different, from the fact that there is a certain difference between our uses of those concepts. (Kammerer, Review of Philosophy and Psychology 10:649–667, 2019) has recently argued, however, that it is psychologically implausible that the intuition of distinctness results from a fallacy: the reasoning process leading (...) to this intuition is, in several psychological respects, similar to valid reasoning and dissimilar to typical fallacies, which gives us a reason to think that this process is a case of valid reasoning. I argue that there are no psychological reasons to think that the process underlying the intuition of distinctness (or at least the crucial part of this process) is a case of valid reasoning. There is, in fact, only one crucial psychological respect in which this process resembles valid reasoning, and although the two processes are similar in one crucial respect, this does not rule out that the intuition of distinctness results from a fallacy, namely, the sort of fallacious reasoning that physicalists have in mind. Furthermore, since the process underlying the intuition of distinctness resembles typical fallacies in one crucial respect, there is a reason to think that the intuition of distinctness does result from a fallacy. (shrink)

Recent theories on cognitive science have stressed the significance of moral intuition as a counter to and complementary part of moral reasoning in decision making. Thus, the aim of this paper is to create an integrated framework that can account for both intuitive and reflective cognitive processes, in order to explore the antecedents of ethical decision making. To do that, we build on Scholasticism, an important medieval school of thought from which descends the main pillars of the modern Catholic (...) social doctrine. Particularly, the focus will be on the scholastic concept of synderesis, which is an innate human faculty that constantly inclines decision makers toward universal moral principles. Managerial implications are discussed, stressing how a rediscovery of decision makers’ intuitive moral judgments could be relevant in the reflective thinking practice of managers’ ethical reasoning, thus saving them from rational insensitivity to ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is needed, but it cannot replace intuitive thinking. Following Robin Hogarth, I argue that intuitive judgements can be improved. The expertise model for (...) moral development, proposed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, not only teaches us how we acquire intuitive moral judgements, it also shows the interconnectedness of intuitive thinking and deliberate reasoning. Analysing the expertise model in more detail, I show that it cannot do justice to the importance of reasoning skills. Reasoning skills are needed because we expect people to be able to argue for their standpoints. I conclude that moral education should not only aim at improving intuitive moral judgements, but also at acquiring reasoning skills. (shrink)

This paper is about the interplay between intuition and reason in Aristotle’s moral psychology. After discussing briefly some other uses of ‘intuition’ in Aristotle’s texts, I look closely at A...

In his argument for the possibility of knowledge of spatial objects, in the Transcendental Deduction of the B-version of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant makes a crucial distinction between space as “form of intuition” and space as “formal intuition.” The traditional interpretation regards the distinction between the two notions as reflecting a distinction between indeterminate space and determinations of space by the understanding, respectively. By contrast, a recent influential reading has argued that the two notions can be fused (...) into one and that space as such is first generated by the understanding through an act of synthesis of the imagination. Against this reading, this article argues that a key characteristic of space as a form of intuition is its nonconceptual unity, which defines the properties of space and is as such necessarily independent of determination by the understanding through the transcendental synthesis of the imagination. The conceptual unity that the understanding prescribes to the manifold in intuition, by means of the categories, defines the formal intuition. Furthermore, this article argues that it is the sui generis, nonconceptual unity of space, when takenas a unity for the understanding by means of conceptual determination, that first enables geometric knowledge and knowledge of spatially located particulars. (shrink)

The book starts with a scandal, that is, Socrates’s mortality as entailed in the Aristotelian syllogism,All men are mortal,Socrates is a man,Therefore, Socrates is mortal. The scandal pertains to the deduction of Socrates’s death from the logical connections of premises, which, according to Braude, renders it “meaningless.” But, what does this scandal have to do with a philosophical defense of intuition in medicine? For Braude, the scandal is emblematic of a crisis in medicine and philosophy—a crisis in which human mortality (...) is severed from its morality. Braude articulates the crisis with the following question:Where, therefore, between the cracks of universal logic and reifying medicine is there a place for the individual patient, for a response to the cry of pain to which medicine responds, or to the voice of injustice upon which moral philosophy is founded? For him, intuition provides a means to answer the question and thereby to resolve the crisis. It serves as “a bridge be .. (shrink)

In criminal trials, evidence often involves a degree of uncertainty and decision-making includes moving from the initial presumption of innocence to inference about guilt based on that evidence. The jurors’ ability to combine evidence and make accurate intuitive probabilistic judgments underpins this process. Previous research has shown that errors in probabilistic reasoning can be explained by a misalignment of the evidence presented with the intuitive causal models that people construct. This has been explored in abstract and context-free situations. (...) However, less is known about how people interpret evidence in context-rich situations such as legal cases. The present study examined participants’ intuitive probabilistic reasoning in legal contexts and assessed how people’s causal models underlie the process of belief updating in the light of new evidence. The study assessed whether participants update beliefs in line with Bayesian norms and if errors in belief updating can be explained by the causal structures underpinning the evidence integration process. The study was based on a recent case in England where a couple was accused of intentionally harming their baby but was eventually exonerated because the child’s symptoms were found to be caused by a rare blood disorder. Participants were presented with a range of evidence, one piece at a time, including physical evidence and reports from experts. Participants made probability judgments about the abuse and disorder as causes of the child’s symptoms. Subjective probability judgments were compared against Bayesian norms. The causal models constructed by participants were also elicited. Results showed that overall participants revised their beliefs appropriately in the right direction based on evidence. However, this revision was done without exact Bayesian computation and errors were observed in estimating the weight of evidence. Errors in probabilistic judgments were partly accounted for, by differences in the causal models representing the evidence. Our findings suggest that understanding causal models that guide people’s judgments may help shed light on errors made in evidence integration and potentially identify ways to address accuracy in judgment. (shrink)

In relation to moral judgment, it is the 'reasoning' and 'intuition' of human representative decision mechanism in cognitive science. The first type is intuitive and automatical way of thinking, and second is ratiocinative and reflecting one. Kohlberg asserted that the most powerful impetus comes from moral reasoning to lead moral judgment and behavior. Haidt explained that intuition plays an leading role and reasoning charges only role of post-justification, in the almost majority of moral situation, via social intuitionism model. Greene (...) elucidates that deontological judgement is deduced intuitively by emotional response automatic and immediately, and judgment due to result does so by reasoning, conscious and reflecting cognitive reaction, through dual process theory. Kahneman maintains that humans make incomplete and irrational judgment, because they have incomplete ability of information processing inherently. To make good judgment, there are so many data to be processed, and we need to make decisions rapidly. Therefore, we use, so-called 'shortcut of judgment' of heuristic, that is, intuition. They acknowledges biased intuition as subject to overcome and upholds the effect of intuition used widely in decision-making at the same time. On the other hand, Gigerenzer claims that it does not necessarily define intuition as source of irrational bias and needs to think it as useful environmental adaptation tool box. In current moral education, the reasoning education is being utilized as core factor to enhance the ability of moral judgment. However, according to the opinions of intuitionist along with Haidt, it suggests strongly that it is not so useful the method of moral education based on reasoning in making moral judgment. This might be clearly significant challenge to moral education. It is because that it supports Haidt's argument that plays an important role for intuition resulting from emotion in moral decision making by many empirical studies recently. In this study, it argues that it guards against the view of underestimating role of moral reasoning, and reasoning could be utilized significantly in decision-making. Reasoning used in situation requiring more complex deliberation differs from intuition system used in context to make rapid decision more effectively, in its roles. (shrink)

This chapter explores how morality can be rational if moral intuitions are resistant to rational reflection. There are two parts to this question. The normative problem is whether there is a model of moral justification which can show that morality is a rational enterprise given the facts of moral dumbfounding. Appealing to the model of reflective equilibrium for the rational justification of moral intuitions solves this problem. Reflective equilibrium views the rational justification of morality as a back-and-forth balancing between moral (...) theory and moral intuition, and therefore does not require that individual moral intuitions be directly responsive to rational reflection. The psychological problem is whether human psychology actually implements the processes required for reflective equilibrium. The psychological problem is far more difficult, and requires appealing to a dual-process view of moral judgement that regards moral intuitions and moral theories as belonging to different mental systems. (shrink)

One of the strangest of the many strange habits of philosophers, which mark them out as the Ishmaels of the scientific world, is their refusal to agree as to the precise meaning of the words they use. No philosopher, it seems, is bound by the definitions given by predecessors or contemporaries of even the most central terms: each has to define his terms for himself. The resulting situation certainly lends itself to ridicule and caricature, as in the legend of the (...) theological disputants who arrived after long argument at the conclusion that when the one said ‘God’ he meant what the other meant when he said ‘Devil.’ Still it is probable that this idiosyncrasy of philosophers has some real ground in the special nature of the task on which they are engaged, and is not a mere exhibition of aimless malice or sheer incompetence. Whether that is so or not, one of the consequences of this situation is that the titles of philosophic discourses are apt to be singularly unilluminating: as an indication of the problem to be raised they are, to say the least, highly ambiguous. How the reader may understand the title of this paper I do not know; but the question which I had in mind in choosing it was this. (shrink)