"We study the complex in the simple; and only from the intuition of the lower can we safely proceed to the intellection of the higher degrees. The only danger lies in the leaping from low to high, with the neglect of the intervening gradations." (Samuel T Coleridge, "Physiology of Life", 1848)
"The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of selection, - for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled by experience, - we gain vastly in our command over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science" (George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory", 1896)
"It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better." (Henri Poincaré, "Science and Method", 1908)
"Mathematics is merely a shorthand method of recording physical intuition and physical reasoning, but it should not be a formalism leading from nowhere to nowhere, as it is likely to be made by one who does not realize its purpose as a tool." (Charles P Steinmetz, "Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers", 1909)
"Scientific hypotheses are intuitive leaps in the dark." (Alexander Goldenweiser, "Robots or Gods: An Essay on Craft and Mind", American Journal of Sociology 37 (3), 1931)
"There is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas or a logical reconstruction of this process […] very discovery contains an ‘irrational element’ or a ‘creative intuition’." (Karl Popper, "The logic of scientific discover", 1934)
"Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge; it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp." (Max Planck, "The Philosophy of Physics", 1936)
"It is his intuition, his mystical insight into the nature of things, rather than his reasoning which makes a great scientist." (Karl R Popper, "The Open Society and Its Enemies", 1945)
"[...] when the pioneer in science sends for the groping feelers of his thoughts, he must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination. Nevertheless, the worth of a new idea is invariably determined, not by the degree of its intuitiveness - which, incidentally, is to a major extent a matter of experience and habit - but by the scope and accuracy of the individual laws to the discovery of which it eventually leads. (Max Planck, "The Meaning and Limits of Exact Science", Science Vol. 110 (2857), 1949)
"[…] observation is not enough, and it seems to me that in science, as in the arts, there is very little worth having that does not require the exercise of intuition as well as of intelligence, the use of imagination as well as of information." (Kathleen Lonsdale, "Facts About Crystals", American Scientist Vol. 39 (4), 1951)
"All great discoveries in experimental physics have been due to the intuition of men who made free use of models, which were for them not products of the imagination, but representatives of real things." (Max Born, "Physical Reality", Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 3 (11),1953)
"Mathematicians create by acts of insight and intuition. Logic then sanctions the conquests of intuition. It is the hygiene that mathematics practice to keep its ideas healthy and strong. Moreover, the whole structure rests fundamentally on uncertain ground, the intuitions of man." (Morris Kline, "Mathematics in Western Culture", 1953)
"The construction of hypotheses is a creative act of inspiration, intuition, invention; its essence is the vision of something new in familiar material." (Milton Friedman, "Essays in Positive Economics", 1953)
"Science, then, is the attentive consideration of common experience; it is common knowledge extended and refined. Its validity is of the same order as that of ordinary perception; memory, and understanding. Its test is found, like theirs, in actual intuition, which sometimes consists in perception and sometimes in intent." (George Santayana, "The Life of Reason, or the Phases of Human Progress", 1954)
"Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge; it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp." (Max Planck, "The New Science", 1959)
"Intuition implies the act of grasping the meaning or significance or structure of a problem without explicit reliance on the analytical apparatus of one’s craft. It is the intuitive mode that yields hypotheses quickly, that produces interesting combinations of ideas before their worth is known. It precedes proof: indeed, it is what the techniques of analysis and proof are designed to test and check. It is founded on a kind of combinatorial playfulness that is only possible when the consequences of error are not overpowering or sinful." (Jerome S Bruner, "On Learning Mathematics", Mathematics Teacher Vol. 53, 1960)
"The functional validity of a working hypothesis is not a priori certain, because often it is initially based on intuition. However, logical deductions from such a hypothesis provide expectations (so called prognoses) as to the circumstances under which certain phenomena will appear in nature. Such a postulate or working hypothesis can then be substantiated by additional observations or by experiments especially arranged to test details. The value of the hypothesis is strengthened if the observed facts fit the expectation within the limits of permissible error." (R Willem van Bemmelen, "The Scientific Character of Geology", The Journal of Geology Vol 69 (4), 1961)
"The most natural way to give an independence proof is to establish a model with the required properties. This is not the only way to proceed since one can attempt to deal directly and analyze the structure of proofs. However, such an approach to set theoretic questions is unnatural since all our intuition come from our belief in the natural, almost physical model of the mathematical universe." (Paul J Cohen, "Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis", 1966)
"Real progress in understanding nature is rarely incremental. All important advances are sudden intuitions, new principles, new ways of seeing." (Marilyn Ferguson, "The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s", 1980)
"[…] science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. […] Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition." (Stephen J Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man", 1980)
"That is to say, intuition is not a direct perception of something existing externally and eternally. It is the effect in the mind of certain experiences of activity and manipulation of concrete objects (at a later stage, of marks on paper or even mental images)." (Philip J Davis & Reuben Hersh, "The Mathematical Experience", 1981)
"The common perception of science as a rational activity, in which one confronts the evidence of fact with an open mind, could not be more false. Facts assume significance only within a pre-existing intellectual structure, which may be based as much on intuition and prejudice as on reason." (Walter Gratzer, The Guardian, 1989)
"Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading." (Isaac Asimov, "Forward the Foundation", 1993)
"Scientists reach their conclusions for the damnedest of reasons: intuition, guesses, redirections after wild-goose chases, all combing with a dollop of rigorous observation and logical reasoning to be sure […] This messy and personal side of science should not be disparaged, or covered up, by scientists for two major reasons. First, scientists should proudly show this human face to display their kinship with all other modes of creative human thought […] Second, while biases and references often impede understanding, these mental idiosyncrasies may also serve as powerful, if quirky and personal, guides to solutions." (Stephen J Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in natural history", 1995)
"Patterns experienced again and again become intuitions. […] Intuitive judgments are made by our use of imagery; intuition is the result of mental model building. […] The mental model used and the form of the intuition is dependent upon the question being answered." (Roger Frantz,"Two Minds", 2005)
More quotes on "Intuition" at the-web-of-knowledge.blogspot.com.
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