Q&A: Feeling and Intuition
Feeling and Intuition
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I saw that you wrote in your article about Memorial Day that you feel that a person has a soul, and that it really exists and is not just a metaphor. I of course share that feeling, but I ask myself why suddenly feeling and intuition are enough for that. Why are there things that you (and we) try to prove in seventy ways, while there are things for which a strong feeling alone is enough? What is the source of this feeling such that it constitutes proof of something so that we can rely on it—is it intellect or just emotion? And what is the difference between these and the things for which we demand more than mere feeling? Is this intuitive feeling also enough for faith in God?
And to sharpen the question further: after all, a person who believes in that man, or alternatively in some baba, also has, as I understand it, a strong intuition that it is true. Yet on the other hand, there will be those who see him as nothing but a fool. So either we say that everything requires rational proof, or that nothing does… What distinction is there between these things? I would be happy if you could bring some order to these questions for me (or if you don't have time, in light of my many questions lately, point me to your article on the matter).
Thank you very much.
Answer
Y., hello.
I have discussed these matters at great length in my books (Two Carts, Truth and the Unstable). At the foundation of every "proof" lies an intuition (from which the proof's basic premises emerge). If it is possible to subject it to critical examination, that is preferable, but intuition is still a reliable and highly important tool. In my book The Science of Freedom as well, my belief in free will is based first and foremost on intuition.
Discussion on Answer
I explain this in my books. It is possible to argue about intuitions. The toolbox for this is rhetoric (as distinct from logic). This is on the assumption that intuition is cognition and not thought, but this is not the place.
Okay, I'll look in your book, God willing, without making a vow.
I understand that this is your well-known claim about the emptiness of the analytic.
But according to this, it would seem that there is no point in arguing at all, because everyone has his own intuition, and you can't argue over that… So how can one nevertheless know which intuition is correct, and what the truth is? As I understand it, the simple answer is: through reason and logical arguments. But they too rest on intuition, and then it goes round again, so isn't this a trap of an infinite loop? Isn't that so?