Quote:
Originally Posted by Casiopea  Do you mean to say that it doesn't exist? |
In saying that intuition is hypothesis, I mean that intuition can be seen as a
subconscious hypothesis about what might happen, and it incorporates contextual or general truths. The intuition about gravitation incorporates the general truth of things reaching the ground when they fall. In other words, emotions may have a role in driving 'hunches', but also does critical reflection.
There is a basic correlation between hypothesis - intuition - theory:
Once a scientific or linguistic hypothesis is formed, one has to figure out how to test its theory. This, usually, is where the human intuition also comes in.
To the limits of logic, intuition opens for new perspectives or possibilities, without distortion due to prejudgment or linguistic usage. Logically, scientific therories should be observable, verifiable, or pass the empirical test. However, according to Henri Poincaré (F. philosopher of science), scientific theories
cannot be verifiable nor falsifiable empirically only. This is because science makes use of generalizations that go
beyond the experience (language + intuition??). For Husserl - one of the founders of phenomenology -, we only need to call on language when we come to describe the
results of our investigations. Ideas stem from intuition, from an unconscious linguistic system of signs. Descartes said that one can only arrive at
pure intuition through the 'reduction from language'. This is because language describes what is already present to consciousness
before the advent of any signs.
Seen in the semiotic context,
scientific theories
are hypotheses (Poincare) - because they are tarnished by language.
Defining any object (theory, hypothesis and so on) is basically a matter of discourse. Different forms of discourse tackle this prodigious machinery of the will to truth from different positions. One can go rock bottom with it or deal with it more lightly.