Intuition

by Hope.K. Fitz

As the title indicates, in this book the overall position which has been presented is that intuition is a natural and necessary part of the "mind`s--life," i.e., the functioning of the human mind in the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding. However, even though intuition is natural and necessary for human knowledge and understanding, it is not viewed with favour by many thinkers around the world. The reason is that, in general, it has been taken to be a nondiscursive form or independent way of gaining knowledge. Yet, as most rigorous thinkers hold, knowledge is by its very nature discursive.Given the foregoing view of intuition, as it is generally understood, the challenge which has been set before the author in writing this book was to legitimate the belief in and use of intuition by presenting an explanation as to its nature and uses which is not at odds with what rigorous thinkers take knowledge to be. The core idea of that has been take in intuition to be in the writings of Sarvepalli RAdhakrishnan. Briefly, intuition, so viewed, is taken to be an integral process of the mind, which culminates in an act of insight. The process involves reasoning, but the insight in which the process culminates does not.Intuition, is not a form of knowledge; rather it is only one means to knowledge which together with reason, sense-experience, and revelation (in the Heideggerian sense) make possible knowledge and understanding. Hope K. Fitz has written numerous articles and presented many scholarly papers on Hindu Philosophical Traditions, Gandhi`s Moral and Religious Legacy. She is a member of the Governing Council for WAVES, the World Association for Vedic Studies and working on her book which is entitiled, Ahimsa: A Way of Life. "Title of the book is interesting and one`s attention is focused on it spontaneously. One gets an inner feeling that this book contains material that is arcane, mystic & transcendental.......an exjaustive study by the author on the topic of intuition." ---------The Journal of Religious Studies Vol. 35, No. 1 & 2, 2004