Intuition
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2 - The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume IV (Paul Edwards, ed.)

Intuition: The broadest definition of the term "intuition" is "immediate apprehension". "Apprehension" is used to cover such disparate states as sensation, knowledge, and mystical rapport. "Immediate" has as many senses as their are kinds of mediation: it may be used to signify:

• the absence of inference
• the absence of causes
• the absence of the ability to define a term
• the absence of justification
• the absence of symbols
• the absence of thought

Four principal meanings of "intuition":

1. intuition as unjustified true belief not preceded by inference ("a hunch")
2. intuition as as immediate (= not preceded by inference) knowledge of truth of a proposition.
3. intuition as immediate knowledge of a concept (knowledge which does not entail ability to define the concept)
4. intuition as nonpropositional knowledge of an entity. This sense of intuition is exemplified by:
   1. sense perceptions, considered as products of a cognitive faculty
   2. distinct from the faculty of forming judgments concerning the entity sensed
   3. intuitions of universals (as time and space)(intuitive knowledge of a priori truths)
   4. mystical or inexpressible intuitions (as Bergon's duration, Fichte's Transcendental Ego, the mystic's intuition of God).

- noninferential knowledge

- faculty theory (two intuitive faculties: sensory and nonsensory intuition = our knowledge of the particular)(comp. Descartes's extreme rationalism only recognized the nonsensory faculty).

- linguistic theory: process of acquiring knowledge is identical with the process of learning the conventions of one's language. The use of language is a necessary condition of the possession of any piece of knowledge.

- behaviorist analysis: we acquire intuitive knowledge simply by reflecting upon our own linguistic behavior (psychological conditioning).

- unconscious inference: nonintuitive, noninferential knowledge. The knower is not aware of having performed the appropriate inference.

- intuitive acquaintance: a person is said to have intuitive acquaintance with a concept if he is able to understand a large range of propositions that employ a term signifying this concept and is unable to explain the significance of this term.

- nonpropositional knowledge: Kant defined intuition as knowledge that is in immediate relation to objects (Critique of Pure Reason, A19-B34, A320-B377). By "immediate" he here meant "without the mediation of concepts". The knowledge gained in sense perception is expressed by judgments concerning the objects sensed but exists prior to the formation of these judgments. (see Russell: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description).
We have an intuition of a certain object O even though we do not know the truth of any proposition of the form "O is Q". Conceptual thought (or language) is inadequate to capture the essence of X (comp. Bergson).
(see also: Fichte, contemporary Thomists)

- intuition of the inexpressible: language is inadequate to express one's intuitive knowledge of reality.
The problem of justification of private experience. (Thomists' intuition of Being, Bergson's intuition of duration).
The medievals used "intuitive cognition" as we would use "sensory intuition" to refer to knowledge about objects present to the senses. The term was opposed to "abstractive cognition", which included memory and imagination.
They also used "intuition" to refer to a vision of God.
Descartes, Spinoza (Ethics II, Prop. 40, Note 2), and Locke used the term "intuition" as we would use "nonsensory intuition" - to refer to our noninferential knowledge of, for instance, mathematical axioms and analytic truths, and of the validity of valid inferences.
Since Kant "intuition" has been nonpropositional perceptual knowledge of a particular and the propositional knowledge derived from this nonpropositional knowledge.

intellectual intuition: nonpropositional knowledge of insensible objects (see Fichte's Transcendental Ego, Neo-Thomists, Bergson)

nonrational(or suprarational) cognition: Schelling evolved an elaborate system in which intuition of a mystical or quasi-religious character was accorded a central place and was held to provide access to the ultimate nature of reality. "The nature of the Absolute itself, which as ideal is also immediately real, cannot be known through explanations, but only through intuition" (see Philsophie und Religion ).

See Bergson's distinction between intellect and intuition.