INTUITION IN CLASSICAL INDIAN THOUGHT

Abstract:

One of the most fundamental problems of philosophy is the discrimination of the basic methods of enquiry into the nature of the ultimate reality. All the methods adopted so far may be brought under two main headings--- Intellectual and Intuitional. While for the advocates of the former method thought or intellect is the highest court of appeal, the intuitionist hold that discursive intellect gives only a superficial view of the reality. The method of intuition rests on the assumption that man has a natural capacity for acquiring knowledge, provided that he exercises this capacity properly. However the term intuition has been used many different senses. Common to all of them is the meaning that it is knowledge which is immediate and indubitably certain. Modern philosophers have taken intuition to mean immediate apprehension by the mind without intervention of any reasoning process, a particular act of such apprehension. Intuition is the whole view of things but intellect is partial knowledge. Radhakrishnan accepts intuition as a source of knowledge. He holds that there is knowledge which is different from conceptual knowledge, a knowledge by which we see things as they are, as unique individuals and not as a member of a class or units in a crowd. It is non- sensuous, immediate knowledge.