The Intuitively Appealing Explanations - Essay Example

IB TOK Topic: When should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing? In every contact human make in the world require certain inborn power to first theorize and validate the superficial understanding and knowledge of what is observed or heard. For that case, intuition makes a basic part of human reasoning and perception of objects, events and sounds. With intuition, one does not need to strive into unnecessary reasoning which may be costly. 1In this line, intuition is therefore defined as one of the senses that make one knows about events happening within their surroundings. Furthermore, intuition can also be described as instinct that brain uses alongside other human sense to make one know and figure out what is happening in the immediate surroundings2. Dictionary.com on the other hand defines intuition as the direct perception of fact and truth without any bit of reasoning process. The principle of intuition is therefore basic in the perception of certain worldly occurrences especially when considered alongside the correspondence theory of truth. Correspondence theory of truth relies on two fundamental claims3. One claim of correspondence theory is that a presentation or claim is validly true only if it corresponds to facts. The other claim of the same theory sees a claim as false only if it does not correspond to the common facts attributed to the claim. Arguing in the lines of correspondence theory of truth, one can conclude that a person’s intuition must correlate and be in agreement with fact to avert the need for reasoning. For example, when applying correspondence theory of truth in explaining intuition, it calls for observation and common sense to claim and believe that a particular person or object is white or red in color4. To prove such a claim is easy because in itself, observing the object from outside unveils the truth that needs no further argument or reasoning. Sometimes intuition make individuals perceive and believe in certain things without knowing how they exist and reasons that make us view them the way we do. In this situation, a perception of things and events taking place within our surrounding end up being rough ideas and images that have not proved to determine their effectiveness. This description can well be applied in the case of a risk taking entrepreneur who invests and start business with the main intuition of making profit and thus raise income but cares less about risks that are likely to occur. Thus, an entrepreneur using acquired intuition will open diversified business operations in various markets without necessarily knowing how the businesses will succeed in the particular markets. This is so because it is never easy to perfectly predict the future trends in the market despite extent of research done in the market. Entrepreneurs know well that no matter the efforts they make, the survival of their businesses entirely relies on luck and fortune and will only use their experiences, which equates to acquired intuition to manage their businesses with hopes of success. It can thus be concluded that some aspects of life like entrepreneurship requires intuitive thinking and decision making with adherence to the trained or acquired intuition. Trained intuition can also be effective when considered alongside the pragmatic theory of truth. 5Pragmatic theory of truth can be described as one that considers true beliefs as generally helpful and false beliefs as unhelpful. This can be succinctly proved by considering the health sector setup. 6For a doctor to successfully treat a patient, he/she must go for that way believed to have possible cure to the patient. Trained intuition is therefore the guideline required to lead the doctor in making critical decision without necessarily having to reason. This is because treating patients does not require guess work or deep reasoning that may be ineffective and result into poor service delivery. The same argument applies to engineers like mechanics. For them to be successful in their work of repairing machine, they have to know the problem and from intuition they obtained during training and experience, make viable decisions that ensure perfect results. To challenge the entire argument about intuition from the perspectives of pragmatic theory of truth, one can argue that not all true beliefs about something relates to useful beliefs about the same7. This is because hanging on true beliefs may lead to poor and undesired consequences thus translating the entire beliefs to useless beliefs. There are however moments and situations when simple intuition of any kind cannot be effective without in-depth reasoning and thought. To exemplify on this, one should consider the coherence theory of truth. Coherence theory of truth relies on the preconceived information and beliefs as related to certain propositions which are likely to be true. For example, a person claiming to feel and experience white substance in his hand coheres well with claims of having a snowball in the hand8. However, this theory of coherence requires in-depth reasoning for actual validity; otherwise one would arrive into false conclusions. Coherence theory of truth will be faulty in its application in the case of security issues handled by police officers. There is a lot of thought process required and justifying every explanation they make is very crucial and important because they cannot afford to jump to conclusions with any idea they instantly process because that would lead to wrong accusations or failed decision-making. Even the tiniest mistake they make would create a big mess even if it means they would fail to catch the biggest art thief. Unlike the entrepreneurs they cannot rely completely on their trained intuitions because they deal with many dissimilar cases everyday and making rational judgments would prove beneficial. That is one limitation of intuitive thinking because people can make quick intuitive decisions when the challenges they face are similar in nature but this would not be the case with changed circumstances or situations. To explicate on the faults of intuition with regard to coherence theory of truth, one can consider the case of Amadou Diallo who was mistaken by the American police for a serial rapist was shot forty one times. One of the reasons was that he was black and the other was because he was defensive as they pursued him. They also mistook his wallet for a gun and hence shot him mercilessly. Emotion and perception play a main role here as the cops took action heedlessly and they perceived him to be someone else without rationalizing or thinking twice. This very example of Amadou justifies how swift intuitive decisions lead to mishaps. In this example we can significantly analyze effects of coherence theory of truth to the simple intuitive thinking and decision making. First, coherence made the police mistake the wallet carried by the victim to be a gun because they had a belief that a rapist poses gun with which they perfect their evil actions. Since there is a common perception and belief that most cruel criminals are usually blacks, the police officers without rational thinking and judgment and reliance on coherence theory of truth mistook the victim with the black serial rapist. In the above case setup, application of pragmatic theory of truth would also be misleading in equal measures. First, considering that intuition under this theory bases on the true beliefs as helpful and false beliefs as useless, police officers would truthfully believe that rapists or robbers must be in possession of weapons. But making judgment on this simple fact had the potentially of misleading the police and thus making unrealistic decision and shooting an innocent person9. They were better of discarding intuition and the complimentary pragmatic theory of truth and approach the suspect and investigate what he carried to determine whether he was brutal or not. To prove ineffectiveness in relying on intuition as the only way by which individuals make and finalize decisions, let us consider the field of education. In education, there are moments when a student or learner has not to rely on all things taught by a professor or instructor. From my personal experience, some questions encountered by students in process of doing exams are never direct to the subject under examination and therefore requires broad reasoning and judgment for student to disclose the immediate context that leads to right answer. Some fields taught by teachers in class may at times remain complex to individual students such that by the end of the lessons the student may have not gotten the required understanding in the field. With respect to that case, my experience as a student would not allow me to feel contented with the taught intuition but I will need to conduct personal research on the field and ensure that I get best out of the learning process. In order to be sure of effectiveness of decision one makes, it is important to consider thorough judgment of pros and cons of the either the possible outcomes10. “Since we live in a world which there is few blacks and whites, you will probably rely on judgment to that proof to decide on what to believe”11. In making good judgment free of errors, one should strike a balance between skepticism and open mindedness. One needs to be vigilant and question any evidence presented before him and not just consider issues intuitively without significant proof and evidence. Before individuals believe in anything, they must be able to support the evidences beyond doubt and be able to respond to criticisms that may emanate from their judgment12. Works cited Dean, Michael. Intuition: The Journal of a Master Psychic. New York: Lulu.com, 2007. Print. Hurwitz, Sue. Intuition. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 1997. Print. Lagemaat, Richard. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma Full Color Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Print. Lagemaat, Richard. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Lehrer, Keith. Theory of knowledge. Colorado: West view Press, 2000. Print. Lemos, Noah. An introduction to the theory of knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Read More