4. This suggestion will be welcomed by all dogmatists--until they
discover that it does not help them to agree together, because they are
all as certain as can be. But a critically-minded man will urge against
it that _'certainty' is a subjective and psychological criterion_, and
that no one has been able to devise a method for distinguishing the
alleged logical from the undeniable psychological certainty. He will
hesitate to say, therefore, that because a belief seems certain it is
true, and to trust the formal claim to infallibility which is made in
every judgment. And when 'intuitions' are appealed to, he will ask how
'true' intuitions are to be discriminated from 'false,' sound from
insane, and inquire to what he is committing himself in admitting the
truth of intuitions. He will demand, therefore, the publication of a
list of the intuitions which are absolutely true. But he will not get
it, and if he did, it may be predicted that he would not find a single
one which has not been disputed by some eminent philosopher.
5. Intuitions, therefore, are an embarrassment, rather than a help to
Intellectualism. It has to maintain both that intuitions are the
foundations of all truth and certitude, and also that not all are true.
But our natural curiosity as to how these sorts are to be known apart is
left unsatisfied. We must not ask which are true, and which not. No one
can say in advance about what matters intuitive certainty is possible;
what is, or is not, an intuition is revealed only to reflection after
the event. Only if an intuition _has_ played us false, we may be sure it
_was_ not infallible; it must either have been one of the fallible sort,
or else no intuition at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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