Siemsen Intuition in Science

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Intuition in the Scientific Process and the Intuitive Error of Science

by Hayo Siemsen, Ernst Mach Institute for Philosophy of Science, INK, FH Emden/Leer(University of Applied Sciences)

AbstractThe role of intuition in the psychology of the scientific process has been systematicallyoverlooked for millennia. Even today, many scientists (intuitively) assume that all scientificthought, such as concept formation or research into the unknown, is completely conscious andrational (i.e. logical). They consider anything not fitting to this schema as unscientific. It hasbeen known for a long time that by careful inspection, this assumption does not correspond tothe facts. Not even in mathematics, the science supposedly the most free from empiricalconstraints. Since Archimedes account for Eratosthenes of his own thought process in hismethod there have been many similar accounts by scientists, such as Henri Poincar, E.W.Beth, Ernst Mach, etc. From their accounts, one can assume as a hypothesis that intuition is anactually widespread phenomenon in scientific thought and the scientific process in general.

This phenomenon is often just not recognized, i.e. it becomes hidden by a rationalization inretrospect. If intuition is not an error in thought, but even an integral part of the (abstract)scientific process, it must be an integral part of all thought processes.

The interesting question is why intuition has been overlooked for so long. In principle,this attitude results from a bias towards conscious thought in psychology versusunconscious thought. The latter is seemingly less accessible to introspection and behaviouralapproaches of measurement. But this bias is also the result of our fundamental concepts ofpsychology and of the philosophy of science in general. Even widely used fundamentalconcepts, such as induction and deduction are biased towards conscious thought. Byincluding the unconscious into the frame of basic scientific concepts, for instance inductionand deduction, the concepts become inherently inconsistent and lose their empiricalmeaning. The bias thus becomes an error (i.e. either an inconsistency with the facts or aninternal inconsistency). Many basic scientific concepts are in this sense not metaphysical, butmetapsychical.

How then shall one avoid this Intuitive Error of Science? An epistemologicallyconsistent conceptual framework for intuition is required. The concept of intuition needs tocorrespond to the known psychological facts. Other concepts (from psychology and science ingeneral) have to be adapted to this concept.

Intuition has not been neglected by all most of the scientific community. Indeed someof the most prominent scientists have already suggested solutions for this problem, such asWilliam James, Hugo Mnsterberg, Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet or Max Wertheimer in

psychology and especially Ernst Mach in the psychology of science. There has also recentlybeen a renewed interest in this topic (for instance The New Unconscious, Hassin et al. 2005or Where Mathematics Comes From, Lakoff & Nez 2000). The following chapter will tryto combine the existing ideas with the facts from psychology of science and draw the outlineof a consistent conceptual framework for the role of intuition in the psychology of science. Itwill also evaluate the implications on modern (cognitive) psychology and the psychology andphilosophy of science in general.

Keywords: intuition, error, consciousness


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When we analyze our thoughts, even the most abstract, we have to notice that they directlyor indirectly contain the elements of our sensual perceptions in an undefined form and newly

interconnected.(Ernst Mach 1906a, p. 603)

1. Human knowledge and the basic intuitions of science

What is the meaning of intuition? Are there physiological and psychological phenomena,which can only be fully and consistently described by postulating such a concept? Up to now,intuition is nearly always described in relation to consciousness. It has thereby been definedas delimiting introspective thought1. Tacitly, it is even often used in delimiting reflective (i.e.rational) thought. The question is, if this view is a) necessary and b) consistent with theknown facts in this direction. The initial view on this question will be by looking into thebasic intuitions of science. These necessarily form a part of our own assumptions as scientistsas well as a part of our concept of intuition.2

V.S. Ramachandran (as a prominent example of a contemporary neuroscientist) for

instance states that Ironically, after extensive training in Western medicine and more thanfifteen years of research on neurological patients and visual illusions, I have come to realizethat there is much truth to [the Indian] view that the notion of a single unified selfinhabiting the brain may indeed be an illusion. Everything I have learnt from the intensivestudy of both normal people and patients who have sustained damage to various parts of theirbrains point to an unsettling notion: that you create your own reality from mere fragmentsof information, that what you see is a reliable but not always accurate representation ofwhat exists in the world, that you are completely unaware of the vast majority of events goingon in your brain. (Ramachandran & Blakeslee 1998, p. 207/208) Contrary toRamachandrans further assumption that his evidence is new, these empirical insights inpsychology are actually nearly 150 years old with very similar conclusions drawn by manyprominent psychologists of that time (see James 1885, 1904, 1905a, 1905b, Mach 1886, Ribot1889, Binet 1889, Wernicke 1879, 1880, etc.; see also Mnsterberg et. al. 1910).3

The interesting question is why these empirically based conclusions have not led to theclarification Ramachandran calls for? My hypothesis would be that the reasons are threefold.First, there was too much cultural rubble left over from the World Wars. Science has builton this rubble without taking the time to systematically clear it up. Many eminent scientistsdied or emigrated from Europe, mainly to the US.4 The long-term effects of this can for

1 For the purpose of this article it should be clarified from the beginning, that thought and language areconsidered different concepts. Language is regarded as a sub-process in which thought is adapted to acommunicable version of it. Language in its spoken, heard, written and read form is in turn a sub-process. The

adaptation process of course has also in turn an influence on the initial thought process. Concepts are thereforeprimarily concepts of thought and only secondarily of language. This view is consistent even with the view ofsome prominent philosophers of language, such as Wittgenstein (see Visser 2002), although this shall not beargued in detail here.2 As a methodological result of this dual relationship, some of the language used in this article might seemunusual to some readers. This language deliberately keeps to a relatively low level of construction (close to theaxioms) in order to a) avoid or at least reduce the use of potentially self-referential concepts and b) beconsistent with general concepts from other related areas, such as biology, physics, mathematics, epistemology,history or anthropology. The dual relationship also shifts the epistemological world view. This shift in turnchanges many empirical meanings of fundamental concepts and consequently of all concepts constructed onthem as well as the relations between these concepts.3 For instance Piaget (Beth & Piaget 1966, p. 140) in writing about the main psychological results of Marbe andthe Wrzburg school of psychology recalls Binets disillusioned outburst: thought is an unconscious activity of

the mind.4 In the history of psychology, for instance, the gestalt concept did not take hold in the US within the concept ofthinking (or epistemology) and had to be reinvented, for instance as emergence concept. Both concepts giveexplanations for a holistic view, but the gestalt concept at least in its original non-physicalistic version


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example be empirically observed in science education, see Siemsen & Siemsen (2009).Secondly and this certainly enhanced the effects of the first there have been cultural andepistemological problems in enculturating these ideas from Europe to the US. In Europe,much of the traditions were destroyed in the process, except in some remote countries lessaffected by the turmoil of the wars (see Siemsen & Siemsen 2009). In the US, the

enculturation process5

, especially the incomplete translation of foundational texts, the shift inempirical meanings in the translation of central concepts or the understanding of the meaningof ideas, led to many misunderstandings and the creation of historical myths based onerroneous facts.6 Finally, the conclusions one needs to draw from Ramachandrans empiricalobservations in order to retain epistemological consistency are strongly counterintuitive tovery basic human intuitions at least concerning the intuitions learnt in current Westerncultures. The epistemological gestalt shift results in a shift in ones world view. It thereforepresents a major cognitive gap, a step too large to take for many people. Therefore, thestudy of intuition can help in understanding these intuitive conflicts and how to resolve themby finding a freer (also intuitively rooted) position. It can help in bridging the cognitive gap.

It is very difficult to avoid already inducing ones (partly intuitive) assumptions on

intuition into the concept of it, because intuition is conceptually so close and dependent on theconcept of knowledge. Knowledge by definition is the foundational concept of epistemology(i.e. the philosophy of knowledge). If we change the concept of intuition, we also by necessitychange the concept of knowledge and thereby the concept which on a meta-level defineswhat intuition is about in the first place. One thus needs to analyze what I will in thefollowing call double-dependency. It is a double-dependency in this case betweenpsychology and the metapsychical.7

I assume (as a hypothesis) that a fundamental epistemological issue has been theorigin of much confusion concerning the concept of intuition: The necessary consistency ofthe concept of knowledge in knowledge of as well as in knowledge about and theinterrelations in-between these two usages of knowledge. A methodological problem arisesespecially because the two usages are mainly observed by different (and competing) sciences:by psychology and physiology for knowledge of and philosophy or philosophy of sciencefor knowledge about. Each science uses a different focus on the phenomena. It therebydevelops its own meanings from them. In turn, this raises the question of how to reconcilethese different perspectives. Even for many people researching around this field, it seems forinstance unclear, if they deal with different perspectives or different types of knowledge.This of course is an epistemological question, which needs to be resolved before anyconsistent meaning of the concept of intuition can be stated.

The following chapter will pursue the question of the meaning of intuition from aspecific philosophy of science perspective (Erkenntnistheorie, literally translated cognition

postulates a consistent psychological (thought economical) explanation which one can research, while theemergence concept relies on a more mystical appeal to the principle inexplicability of complexity. The centralquestion of what the empirical meanings of complexity and simplicity are remains unresearched. As we shallsee, this belongs to the area of metaphysics and metapsychology. The main problem is that the epistemologicalorigins of the gestalt concept became forgotten (see later).5 The term here is used in the sense of Jerome Bruner as a dual process of adaptation. The idea is adapted to adifferent culture and the culture can also become adapted to the idea (see Cole 2000).6 For instance the concept of psychophysical parallelism in the description of the relation between the physicaland the psychical is one out of several possible descriptions, but unfortunately one, which intuitively suggeststhe idea of two distinct processes running alongside of each other. Thus a false conception might arise from theword, and where a fundamental question is concerned a term leading to misunderstandings can do endlessharm. (Semon 1923, p. 61) I recently asked a German historian of science about this. He answered that of

course he knew that the concept of parallelism is a wrong description for the psychophysical concept at least inits later phases of development, but he continues to use it, because all the US-Americans use it.7 The metapsychical is for psychology what metaphysics is for physics. The concept does not need more detaileddescription at this time. This will be developed during the article.


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theory). This perspective is very similar to the one William James developed in his late yearsas a result of his empirical observations. These observations brought him to doubting theexisting philosophical concept of consciousness.8 I am sharing his doubt, but not necessarilythe way, how he stated the conclusions he drew from it. I will instead follow the ideas of theperson from whom James, at least to a larger part, took the inspiration for the development of

his own idea. It is the person who according to James himself9

he continuouslyintensively discussed with his colleagues and students. It is one of the three persons10 whohad the most epistemological influence on James, namely Ernst Mach.11

2. The historical genesis12

of the concept of knowledge: epistemologies of intuition

Which epistemologies of intuition are influential today? In order to initially describe the mainepistemologies and clarify their differences, I will use a metaphor, which is frequentlyinvoked by different representatives of each epistemological direction: the phase-difference ofthe water level. If one takes a river (or sea) as a metaphor for thought, then for thematerialists, the physical river is thought (seen from an observer standing besides the river).For the dualists, either there are icebergs in the water, which are partly above the surface

(which represents the metaphorical phase transition between consciousness andunconsciousness), or the river represents the thoughts having material undercurrentsobscuring the clear view of the upper part. For the neutral monists, the river in the metaphorwould represent the thoughts and consciousness its surface.

With this picture in mind and as a result of considerations from philosophy of science(described in detail afterwards), one can categorize current ideas about thought into dualismand monism with different variations, depending on how mind and matter are seen in relation

8 The concept of the unconscious used in the following is explicitly not the concept as Freud and his studentsdeveloped it. As Mnsterberg et al. (1910) have already noted, Freuds conceptual frame is constructed on very

specific assumptions, many of which I regard as metaphysical. The concept of the unconscious used here justdenotes that it is not accessible to introspection. As a result of the following deconstruction of the concept ofconsciousness, also the concept of the unconscious becomes usable only in the context of describingintrospection.9 See Thiele (1978, pp. 169/173). James writes about Mach (1882): I dont think anyone ever gave me so strongan impression of pure intellectual genius. In 1902, thereby shortly before criticizing the concept ofconsciousness and developing his radical empiricism, James thanks Mach for the dedication of the thirdGerman edition of Machs Popular Science Lectures: [] I trust [] that you and I may [] contribute jointlyto the establishment of the truly philosophic way of thinking which I believe to be on the whole ourway![] I am now trying to build up before my students a sort of elementary description of the construction of theworld as built up of pure experiences related to each other in various ways, which are also definite experiencesin their turn. There is no logical difficulty in such a description to my mind, but the genetic questionsconcerning it are hard to answer. I wish you could hear how frequently your name gets mentioned, and your

books referred to. We will later come back to the relation between James radical empiricism and the geneticquestions.10 According to the biographer of James, Perry (1935).11 According to Boring (1950; 1957, p. 392/393), Mach exerted a great influence on psychology. [ He]furnished the epistemology of the relation of psychology to physics which Klpe and Titchener later adopted andmade the rule for modern parallelists. As has been stated before, Machs concept of psychophysics has beenunfortunately misunderstood by the parallelists. This has led to epistemological inconsistencies, which will becentral to this article.12 Genesis is understood here as the general process resulting from the interrelated genetic processes of thebiological development (phylogeny), the development of the individual from birth (ontogeny), the culturaldevelopment, the development of science as part of culture, etc. (for the question of the interrelations betweenthese processes, see for instance Boas 1911; 1938 or Zilsel 1931; 1976). In this type of analysis, there is ofcourse the problem of reverse engineering, i.e. in any genetic reconstruction several ways are possible of

which one needs to take the most probable according to research at the given time. Even if the historical detailsof the genetic process cannot be known anymore, experiments and observations from anthropology anddevelopmental psychology can be found and repeated. Thus, several genetic perspectives are brought togetherinto consistency.


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to each other and how the relation between rational and empirical thinking is evaluated. Fourmain epistemologies have thus been used in order to describe intuitive phenomena:

1. Dualism, postulating mainly one of two possibilities:a. either intuition and consciousness belong to the mental world in which case

intuition is often regarded as superior to consciousness in its qualities

b. or intuition belongs to the material world in which case it is often regardedas inferior to consciousness2. Monistic materialism (mostly in the sub-forms of mechanism, physicalism and

behaviourism), in which consciousness is an illusion (e.g. Richard Dawkins, DanielDennett)

3. Psychomonism relating everything to mind. Sub-forms include idealism, panpsychismor mind-in-the-machine analogies in which we infer problems in operating a machineas a (malign) will of the machine

4. Neutral monism, in which consciousness is a construct. It has in principle twovariants:

a. reconstruction by allowing only the given facts (e.g. in the radicalempiricism of William James)13

b. reconstruction by taking a genetically early position (early childhood, etc., e.g.Ernst Mach)

Epistemologically, all these approaches and their variants can internally be mostly consistent,but not all describe the same facts or consider the same circumstances under which theyappear, nor are all their axioms necessarily consistent to each other. The different approachescan be compared in order to see, if they can describe the diversity of facts and in how far theyare dependent on teleology, i.e. by postulating their concept of consciousness (which issupposed to be one result of the analysis) already into their main assumptions. As a result, amore general concept of intuition can be developed.

The genesis of ideas leading to the Copernican question of world viewsHow does one need to conceptualize these epistemologies in order to understand theepistemological shift of the late William James (and Mach)? In the following I will provide abrief overview of the historical developments14 which led to Jamess epistemological gestaltshift and their influence on current psychology. For this I will begin with what is at leastaccording to Bertrand Russell one of the most firmly established (i.e. thus intuitivized)distinctions in popular philosophy (Russell 1921; 1922, p. 10).

Within the categories of mind and matter15, in principle all people16 (in Westerncultures) believe that they are ultimately either one (monism) or that they are two (dualism).

13 One can object here (see for instance Tolman 1989) that James himself saw an inconsistency between monismand pluralism and preferred to side with the latter. From a Machian perspective, this is a pseudoquestion. Fromdifferent senses we would also not infer that they belong to different worlds, but one. If there are different (andpotentially inconsistent) descriptions (interpretations) of this world from different perspectives that is anotherquestion. In this sense, James epistemologically remains a monist.14 For the current purpose, this historical view will only concern one time layer (in the sense of Koselleck2003), namely the epistemological perspective from the late James and Mach.15 Mind and matter are also popular concepts in much of the psychological literature, categorizing what hasalso been called the psychophysical. Unfortunately, from a genetic perspective, mind and matter are bothalready highly constructed concepts. They are relatively far away from the empirical physical and psychicalphenomena and heavily dependent on metaphysical conventions (as shown in detail later in the article). For myown investigation, such fixed concepts would unnecessarily narrow down the inquiry right from the beginning.

Instead in the following, I will use the deliberately vague concepts physical and the psychical, which justrepresent the phenomena, whatever their later interpretation. Similarly, the popular distinction between mindand brain will be disregarded. These categories assume that exclusively the brain thinks, i.e. is involved inhigher acts of interpretation, while the lower senses just measure. The distinction between what is


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These fundamental belief systems probably developed out of different syntheses concerningtwo fundamental human questions: The concept of human knowledge relative to Godsknowledge and the question resulting from the introduction of the idea of monotheism: ifthere is one God, how can there be good as well as evil in the world?17

Though still fundamentally based on these questions, the change initiating most

modern interpretations and therefore the current approaches to what thought is, has beenwhat became known as the the Copernican revolution (see for instance Kuhn 1957, Cohen1985). It was a new synthesis of touchable18 physics on earth and the necessarily morevisually oriented (at the time becoming increasingly wavelength dependent) translunarphysics by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. Because of consistency, the revolution synthesisalso implied an adaptation of the concept of thought.19 If formerly fundamental andundisputable systems, such as the Ptolemaic geocentric model, could underlie fundamentalrevisions, what if anything could be considered safe knowledge? How could one discernillusions or errors in knowledge?

It thus becomes a central question, what an illusion is in the first place in terms ofworld views. As Mach noted, we cannot have several world views at the same time. It is very

tedious to continuously construct and adapt all resulting concepts. In the interpretation ofAristotle (see later for a more detailed analysis of Aristotle), illusions could not exist insensory perception, but only in the interpretation of them (one would call this qualia incurrent terminology). The problem is the psychophysical relation. Is it possible to make aconsistent conceptual cut between sensory perception and interpretation? As thephysiological facts of sensory perception, e.g. how the retina is arranged, the time intervals inwhich stimuli can still be differentiated, etc., already involve a high degree of (biological)interpretation. No such consistent conceptual cut exists empirically. At least none exists,

higher and lower already involves a lot of constructive interpretation and is therefore an epistemologically

unsafe starting point (i.e. metaphysical and not empirical).16 This is not only true for scientists as Carter (2002, p. 58) notes. One might therefore assume that this belief istransmitted in early childhood, just like the intuitive basis of the concept of knowledge (see Bransford et al.1999). As these concepts tend to be relatively stable in life, the question is, if and in how far they are changed byacademic studies. Considering that these questions are not consciously addressed in most academic studies, onecould assume that most scientists rely on a folk theory of epistemology.17 This idea can be traced back at least to Zoroaster or his successors (see Eliade 1975). In the Gths (Zoroaster1900), the supreme godAhura Mazd creates the two spirits Spenta Mainyu andAngra Mainyu.Angra Mainyudecides to become evil, while Spenta Mainyu as the spiritual principle becomes good and remains one with

Ahura Mazd. When the spirits meet, they decree life and death and how all at the last shall be ordered.They are afterwards representing the principles of best mind (as the good principle) and worst life (as theevil principle). The interpretation of this mythical idea has been the source for countless interpretation andattempts of synthesis in many cultures and in philosophy. The two spirits can be interpreted as mind and

matter, but as we can see from the original text, it is open to different and sometimes very subtleinterpretations. In a modern interpretation without explicit reference to Zoroaster, William James for instancecalls the result a pseudomonism, where the unitary principle can only be known by its two aspects of mind andmatter (see later for quotation).

The mythological theme of the two spirits can also be found in the biblical story of the Genesis (see alsoEliade 1975), although here they do not play such an initially dominant role. The roles ofSpenta and Angra

Mainyu are later theologically becoming apparent again as the Holy Spirit and the devil (the older gods daevaand their worshippers, whom Zoroaster fought, deciding for the wrong side). In other syntheses by differentGnostic ideas in early Christianity, aspects of the two spirits appear again closer to their Zoroastrian form. InPlatonist theology, their aspects appear in the personification of the demiurgos, i.e. the public worker or(conscious) maker of the world. Here the aspect of the decision (whether it is independent of the maker or not)becomes that of omniscient cognition, i.e. our current concept of consciousness. Jungians will easily spot thearchetypal adolescent initiation theme in this conceptual development. For a more detailed analysis, see Siemsen

(2010c).18 The term is deliberately vague and includes, for instance, tactile, haptic, motor, enactive, orientation and othersensual experiences. The reasons for this and other conceptual vagueness will become clear later.19 Duhem (1908) first brought this to scientific conscience and analyzed it.


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which would be consistent with the psychophysical facts.20 If the empirical meanings cannotbe consistently divided between concepts, also no epistemological cut can be introduced atthis point. It would equally not be consistent. All postulation of such an epistemological cut istherefore based on nave physics or nave psychology. Depending on the initial trainingof the researcher as natural scientist or as psychologist, the facts appearing from a more

elaborate inquiry of the other perspective remain unknown or interpreted as epiphenomenalanomalies. Both views are nave in the sense that they disregard many facts and thecircumstances under which they appear.

Mach (1906a) describes this in his article for psychologists in lAnne Psychologique:The physicist relies on concepts so abstract, that he during his work tends to forget

the countless sensual elements, which serve as basis for his measures and apparatus. Heholds the result of his research for something objective, which can be generally appliedand that deserves more trust than the special perception. []

The physiologist studies the organism of the human or the animal as a pure physicistand chemist. But as soon as an analogous induction prompts him to add perception to thepurpose of his research, he fancies that he is leaving the objective and entering the area of

the unknown, intangible. He does not think about that the physicist does constantly makeuse of these analogous inductions, for example when he sees the moon, which is onlyaccessible to his eye, as a tangible mass [].

The psychologist is submitted to the prejudices of physics, as the biological callingsurge every human to behave as a physicist , the psychologist assumes the contrariety oftwo heterogeneous worlds; whereas for the physicist the psychological world seemsintangible, he instead sees in the latter something immediately given, the necessarystarting point; but from his philosophical position, the physical world is projected into anunreachable distance.

In Machs view, there are no illusions (Mach 1905). Error is an integral part of theknowledge process and what is regarded as error often depends on the point of view and theframe of reference. The error of illusions only seemingly exist within a given referenceframework. If one changes the perspectives, illusions suddenly disappear. If one puts a stickpartway into water, it appears broken. When one takes it out, it is whole again. What isthe illusion, the part of the stick above or the part underneath the surface? When one learnsabout optics and light refraction in different media, there suddenly is no illusion anymore. It isa physical (and physiological) phenomenon. Similarly, many optical illusions, such asMach bands, i.e. bands of adapted brightness appearing around a sudden border of sharpblack-white contrasts, still exist in a third person perspective and can be photographed.21

The main question of the Copernican system versus the Ptolemaic one is a question ofreference. There is no inherent reason for not taking the earth as the main reference. Indeed in

most of our astronomical observations we still do this. It would simply be tedious torecalculate everything as it would be seen from the sun. The question of the Copernicansystem was more: If the sun is much larger than the earth and the other planets, should one seethe sun at the centre or the earth? From the perspective of this question, one would intuitivelytend to take the larger body as a reference. Of course after Kepler, Galileo and Newton onecan also argue that this system of reference is easier (more economical) for description, as onehas to calculate a lot less epicycles. But this was not yet the case for the Copernican version,which equally had many epicycles to calculate (see Kuhn 1957). Even today, one could fly tothe moon with a Ptolemaic system of reference. Though by now, there would be many moreepicycles to calculate and the process would be very tedious.

20 For a detailed analysis, see for example Uexkuell 1957. For a newer account of the same idea, see Nagelsarticle How is it like to be a bat? (1974).21 As an anecdote, the photographer, who was supposed to take a picture of the effect for Mach on a rotatingdisc, repeated his photography several times, because he initially thought that the result was an error.


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So the question between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican world view is not easy todecide. It is basically a matter of the thought economy of one theory describing many factsinstead of adding more and more anomalies to a theory describing fewer facts and fewer ofthe circumstances under which they appear. We could now equally propose the centre of thegalaxy or the calculative centre of the universe (where the big bang is supposed to have

happened) as the centre of reference. Here, many good intuitions would be speaking for this,but even more speaking against. Nevertheless, our world view is a matter of convention.

The historical genesis of the empirical and rational descriptions of the world before James

and MachWhich fundamental philosophical ideas did the Copernican revolution initiate concerningthe scientific world view? The major philosophical approaches regarding this question werebased on two observations of the Copernican revolution: that it was seemingly based onrational critical thought (adapting the thoughts to each other) and that it was based onempirical observations (adapting the thoughts to the facts).22 Following these observations,two different schools of thought developed. The main proponent of an initially rational

interpretation has probably been Ren Descartes with his famous (intuitive) dictum cogitoergo sum (I think therefore I am). The main proponent of the second, the empiricalinterpretation of thought became David Hume with his famous example of the whiteraven.23 To be sure, both schools of thought allowed for the influence of the other idea todifferent degrees. But both supposed that their champion had given the initial impetus andtherefore deserved to be at the basis of their philosophical reconstruction. This would laterresult in different interpretation of what metaphysics meant, in its positive and (especially)negative sense. The question is what constitutes good (i.e. scientific) and bad (i.e.erroneous) metaphysics.

Two attempts of synthesis of these two ideas will be important for our analysis: IsaacNewton in physics and Immanuel Kant in philosophy. Newton followed the open questionwhy the moon in Keplers heavenly mechanics does not fall to earth like an apple.24 Heanswered it in separating the property of mass (heaviness) from the concept of(touchable) matter. In the process, Newton used Descartes (intuitive) assumption that spaceand time were absolute and independent, which led to Machs critique on Newton.

Kant initially set himself the goal of abolishing all metaphysics (i.e. not empiricallyderived entities). He did so from his perspective. But from a Machian perspective, he missedthe a priori and the thing-in-itself (Ding an sich).25 These, Kant himself expected to behighly intuitive and therefore empirical. From a Machian perspective, they are, except for

22 The expressions in both parentheses are taken from Mach. At the current stage, this type of description should

not be considered necessary, but helpful for some conceptual clarifications, especially because of the sketchyhistorical-genetic overview without detailed analysis. For more details, see Duhem (1908) or Siemsen (2009a).23 This was later restated by Karl Popper as the black swan example (see also Taleb 2007). If we only sawwhite swans before, we would assume as a fact that that all swans are white. Only when we see our first blackswan we notice that all swans are white is only a hypothesis (and a false one). Equally the hypothesiseverything falls down is heuristic, albeit the statistical probability of us experiencing it to be false according toquantum physics is extremely low. Such probabilities can of course become extremely high if we do somethingvery much outside of our regular (daily) experience, such as go into space or wearing special spectacles, whichturn the world upside down for our eyes. Of course in the latter case, we would think of this as an optical illusion(again trusting the motor part of our senses more than the visual part), but we can only do so, if we compare theexperience to our normal experience considered to be part of our intuition. This explanatory illusionhypothesis in turn creates a black swan problem, but on the more general perception level as we will see later.24 Interestingly, in modern depictions of this intuition, the moon is often dropped out of the picture. This is an

example of poorly understood intuitions without their historical genesis, like a form without content. Theempirical meaning of the concept of gravity is lost in this process.25 Mach was wondering If the great Koenigsbergian [i.e. Kant] in his metaphyisical clean-up has not forgottensome fungus spore, which has been proliferating all over ever since. (Mach 1893b; 1923, p. 588).


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their genetic metaphysical interpretations, which after a while became dominant with hissuccessors. In both cases, Newton and Kant, intuition starts to become the proxy for long-termempirical experiences.

From our perspective at this point, the differentiation between empirical andmetaphysical intuition becomes important, or more precisely the differentiation between the

empirical and metaphysical part of intuitions. As James had noted, many of our intuitions areformed by default. We often do not encounter a direct empirical feedback, especially onmetaphysical ideas. We tend to interpret the missing feedback as a positive feedback. Asintuitions are by definition unconscious, it makes the process of differentiation difficult withinthe classic rational framework. For this, a genetic framework is required. The development ofsuch a methodological framework became possible with the publication of Charles DarwinsOrigin of the Species in 1859.

After the theory of evolution was able to consistently describe many facts accumulatedin geology, biology and other sciences without taking recourse to a teleological goal, thequestion of human knowledge (for instance in relation to animal knowledge or Godsknowledge) acquired a specific twist: What is human knowledge as a result of an evolutionary

(genetic) process? Humans now could not consistently be described without looking into theirevolution, unless one would disregard a large number of geological and biological facts andtake recourse to an ad-hoc creation hypothesis. The strength of Darwins theory was that itcould describe these facts without recourse to teleological and therefore inherentlyanthropomorphic explanations.26 Anthropomorphic explanations depend on postulating anAristotelian final goal or final cause, which runs into the white swan hypotheses-typeproblem of human experiences. One assumes that we know what is final, although ourexperience is limited. It is very metaphysical (i.e. not empirical) to extrapolate currentknowledge to all future knowledge. In a sense, one thereby assumes to know Godsthoughts. Even in the case of assuming an initiation to Gods knowledge, the questionremains how one can then safely assume to have Gods thoughts.

Could human thought and scientific thought as a specific part of human thought bedescribed without teleology? The first (after Darwins Origin) to address this question wasErnst Mach. He famously criticized the anthropomorphic assumption of causality as anatural law27 and (resulting from this) Newtons intuitive assumptions of absolute andindependent space and time. The result was the development of the new physics, i.e.quantum mechanics and relativity theory (see for instance Einstein 1916).28

Other world views: Dualism, materialism, etc.After explaining the point of view of neutral monism, this view will in the following beapplied to the other world views. The neutral monism perspective was central to the world

view of William James and Ernst Mach. Both (together with Alfred Binet, see Siemsen2010b) have been very influential in the long term, because they laid the epistemologicalfoundations for many resulting fruitful ideas in science, especially also in psychology. Butthese resulting ideas have often been founded only on aspects of their epistemology,especially not encompassing (and often not understanding) their shift in world view, whichmade this epistemology possible in the first place.

From the perspective of neutral monism (in the sense of James and especially Mach),the otherworld views, such as dualism as well as material and psychical monisms, have

26 This aspect was interestingly mentioned in the defence of Darwins theory especially by one of the mostspeculative of Darwins successors, Ernst Haeckel (1905).27 According to Mach (1911), the concept of causality is a psychical (thought economical) result of humancuriosity and inquiry. Mach started to write about these ideas already in 1863, four years after Darwins Originand much before Darwin or Haeckel would publish on this question.28 The example will be elaborated below in an analysis of intuition in science.


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inconsistencies, which are based on the central question of this chapter, i.e. the question ofconsciousness and of intuition. James and Machs criticisms are based on these fundamentalinconsistencies, which will therefore in the following be elaborated in more detail. As thechapter actually argues that these other views are based on specific definitions of the conceptof consciousness, which are not consistent with the facts, it is important to have a look into

what effects these definitions have on the higher construct level of these other world views,first dualism and then the other monisms.Dualism is founded on the intuition of the self being conscious of itself

(Descartes cogito ergo sum, which can in a similar way already found with Aristotle). Ittakes into account that there are physical and mental phenomena and that both cannot bereduced onto each other without losing some central properties. From a monistic perspective,the philosophical price is that all entities need to be mentally duplicated and described intwo ways. This makes later adaptations of the concepts difficult, as additionally the relationbetween the two has to be adapted as well.

Dualism makes two important assumptions, namely that the self and thatconsciousness exist a priori. They are some form of direct perception or Gods

thoughts with no construction involved in the process. Unfortunately, many phenomena inpsychology (such as multiple selves or multiple consciousnesses) point to the fact that bothexperiences the experience of a self as well as the experience of a consciousness arealready highly constructed to begin with. Ramachandrans initial quote leads into the samedirection. But then, one has to leave the belief in dualism. Dualisms intuitive basis isfundamentally not consistent with Ramachandrans (and many other psychologists)observations, so it leads to empirical contradictions.

Materialism is a form of monism. Its principle concept of matter is based on strongphysical assumptions, which often can only be consistently provided by certain forms of folkphysics. In its more refined forms of behaviourism and mechanism, it is based on Newtonianphysics as in both forms the concept of matter is still assumed to be consistent.29 In modernphysics there is no concept of matter consistent with all known physical phenomena on whichmaterialism could be based upon. There are only different (internally inconsistent) concepts ofmatter describing these different phenomena. The type of physics used by materialists ismostly not made explicit, but intuitively assumed. The difference can be analyzed by thephysical context in which the concept of matter is used, for instance if air is consideredmaterial (in folk physics it often is not and all examples are conspicuously taken from solidbodies). In current physics, gases, such as air, are considered material bodies. Also it istelling, if objects are considered material. Contrary to bodies, which are considered physical,objects are metaphysical. Objects (or rather particles30) in physics, such as electrons, quarks,etc. are partly only energetic (i.e. they have no mass counting as material body). Some

particles can mainly be mathematically described and are in so far metaphysical (a thing ofthought and not of empiry, see Wilczek 2002, 2004a). Here one can see that the origin ofmaterialism lies in the sensual intuition of touching and observe the limitations of itsapplication in modern physics (see also Avenarius 1891).

In this view, physical phenomena are considered to be independent of the observer andhis psychology.31 Materialism thereby assumes that our concept of matter is not

29 Thus, as Zilsel (1941; 1976, p. 168) observes, The mechanistic conception of nature is anthropomorphicaland interprets natural processes after the pattern of human actions.30 The concept of particles fits better than that of an object to the physical phenomenon as they are derivedby parting empirically (i.e. sensually) better known entities.31 In quantum mechanics, the observer is necessarily a part of the phenomenon as the very act of observation

changes the phenomenon. According to Pauli (Laurikainen 1989), this also implies that the psychology of theobserver becomes part of the phenomenon. The observer interprets what the circumstances of the phenomenonare and what is considered and observed as a phenomenon in the first place. Physical instruments, for instance,depend on how we build them, i.e. which ideas (based on our experiences) we build into them.


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anthropomorphic and non-teleological, i.e. it is independent of previous and current humaninterpretation and future developments in science. The intuition is that the touching/hapticalexperience is the initial perception and the preferential one in detecting illusions, i.e.inconsistencies in sense perceptions. This concept of matter would then at first view constitutea safe basis (i.e. a basis independent of future changes in science) for constructing all of

science on it. The mechanistic hypothesis additionally assumes that because mechanics hasbeen so successful in describing physical phenomena and human manipulation of thesephenomena, it can be taken as a conceptual basis for all of science.

As a result of assuming psychical phenomena as epiphenomena of physicalphenomena (physical phenomena thereby must be considered to be not metaphysical), allintrospection and first person accounts of psychical phenomena are rejected. Materialists tryto supplant them by the so called third-person perspective of an independent observer.Thereby, the approach tries to avoid the problems within consciousness, but at the cost ofintroducing the constructedness of consciousness and limitations of measurement as problemsof the observation.

As an example of the possibility of in principle unsubjective observation, Martians

are postulated, who would be able to observe human consciousness without actually sharingit. Unfortunately, from an empirical perspective (which most materialists certainly claim tohold), Martians must currently be supposed to be an unobservable entity. Therefore, allspeculation on how Martians would behave must not be classified as a thought experiment,but as a purely metaphysical fictional speculation.32 Conceptually, the actual descriptions ofMartians (for instance by Dennett 2006), have a remarkable anthropomorphic similarity withhumans.33 Even the tentative ideas from Uexkuell (1957) about the world views of animalsalready show fundamentally different experiences leading to what as a result must be radicallydifferent worlds. Maybe Martians would not have culturally developed the concept ofconsciousness and therefore regard it as a pseudoproblem in the first place. All such thoughtsare as speculative as postulating any ignorabimus limit to knowledge34. We simple do notknow, in what ways the world view of future generations might be different from ours. Ourlimits of knowledge might in the future look like a result of local theories of knowledge, thereference of which to general knowledge just became obsolete together with the concepts andfacts it included. Today we do not worry anymore about a growing number of epicycles nordo many people remember what they were good for in the first place. Assumptions that thesepatterns might change in the future are anthropomorphic.

Mach (1920, p. 434) writes on materialism: For most natural scientists and manyphilosophers, who do not admit it, the thought that all psychical could be deducible to thematerial in private is very congenial. Even if this materialism has a catch, it is not the worstpossibility; it stands at least with one foot on secure ground. But if all psychical should be

understandable physically, why not the other way round? [] Is the other [psychical] footstanding in the air? I would prefer [] to stand on both feet.35 From Machs perspective, the

32 As Vaihinger (1911; 2008) stated in his (Machian inspired) philosophy of the As If (Philosophie desalsob), fictions are not wrong a priori, but they need to have a descriptive (explanatory) value, which in this casethey do not have. Because of their high anthropomorphic character, Martians as explanatory fictional entities forscience are rather misleading than enlightening.33 If one wants to think about the question, how a Martian would think, one should first try to imagine a Martianvery different from human experience, maybe as the planet Solaris described by Stanislav Lem in the novelSolaris. Interestingly, in Lems novel, the human scientists first start learning anything meaningful about theplanet when they start psychologically observing themselves after all mechanistic observation has failed.34 This is similar to the homununculus problem (see Wegner 2005) in which one assumes a (mostly implicit)homununculus directing our thoughts. One thereby simply redefines the problem into another one without

solving it.35 The argument that physics has been the most successful science (as many intuitive materialists claim) is noargument for the physicist Mach. Such historical success can be misleading, as the 2000 years of success forthe Ptolemaic world view shows. Additionally, modern physics is not reducible to classical mechanics (which is


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inconsistency of the concept(s) of matter poses little problem. [M]atter must be regardedmerely as a highly natural, unconsciously constructed mental symbol for a complex ofsensuous elements []. Still less, therefore, should the monstrous idea ever enter our heads ofemploying atoms to explain psychical processes; seeing that atoms are but the symbols ofcertain peculiar complexes of sensuous elements which we meet with in the narrow domain of

physics. (Mach 1886; 1919, p. 152/153) There is no necessity to become dualist thereby forthe one, who considers both feet as equal and both floor spaces under the soles to belong notto two different worlds. (Mach 1920, p. 434)36

3. The critique from William James and Ernst Mach on the existing world views

James and Mach developed their new world view as a safer basis, which would avoid theinconsistencies of the otherworld views existing at their time. For instance, William Jamesdevelops his idea of what he calls radical empiricism from an empirical critique of dualism:All the schools Scholastic, Cartesian, Kantian, Neo-Kantian are in agreement on this, alladmit to a fundamental dualism. It is true that the positivism or agnosticism of our own day which prides itself as coming under the physical sciences freely assumes the name of

monism. But it is a monism in name only. It posits an unknown reality, but then tells us thatthis reality always presents itself under two aspects, on the one side consciousness and onthe other matter. (James 1905a; 1967, p. 184)37 Now psychology takes precisely for itsdomain the field of the facts of consciousness. It postulates these facts without criticizingthem, and opposes them to material facts; and, also without criticizing the notion of the latter,psychology relates them to consciousness by the mysterious bond ofknowing, ofapperception, which is for psychology a third kind of fundamental and ultimate fact. Byfollowing this approach contemporary psychology has enjoyed great triumphs. It has beenable to fashion a sketch of the evolution of conscious life by conceiving the latter as adaptingitself more and more completely to the environing physical world. It has been able to establisha parallelism within dualism, that of physical facts and cerebral events. (James 1905a; 1967,p. 185) Experience, I believe, has no such inner duplicity; and the separation of it intoconsciousness and content comes, not by way of substraction, but by way of addition theaddition, to a given concrete piece of it, of other sets of experiences, in connection with whichseverally its use or function may be of two different kinds.(James 1904; 1967, p. 172) It isvery difficult, or even absolutely impossible, to know solely by intimate examination whethercertain phenomena are of a physical nature occupying space, etc. or whether they are of apurely psychical and inner nature. [] in the final accounting it could well be that all ourusual classifications may have derived their motives more from practical needs than fromsome faculty we possess of perceiving two ultimate and diverse stuffs which together aresupposed to comprise the scheme of things. (James 1905a; 1967, p. 189)

According to James psychological critique on philosophers, intuition in this sensetakes two roles in introspection: one the one hand it frees attention from already intuitivized

mainly the one with the alleged success, but considered outdated and wrong from a current perspective, seeWilczek 2004b). Materialism intuitively assumes that the concept of matter is necessarily foundational to physicsand that it does not change over time. Unfortunately these assumptions are not true. One could for instance withat least equal reasons consider energy as foundational concept of physics as Wilhelm Ostwald has done. Theconcept has undergone considerable changes and there currently cannot even be considered any broad consensusamong physicists as to the exact meaning of matter. For instance anti-matter is defined as (at least in oneproperty) the opposite of matter. The basic intuition of materialists is that matter exists tangibly and constantly.Now anti-matter by definition annihilates matter. What stays constant in this process is energy and not matter.Do materialists believe in anti-matter if physics says that it experimentally exists? Even within its own

epistemological framework, the assumptions of materialism lead to rather large paradoxes.36 Because psychomonism as a theoretical position in science is relatively rare, it shall not be considered in detailhere, especially as many arguments on materialism apply analogously.37 One can recognize here indirectly the idea from Zoroaster ofAhura Mazd and the two spirits.


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properties, on the other hand it hides these properties from further introspection. It evensometimes hides the empirical basis of the concept itself from which it derives its meaning(see for instance Mach 1905 or Kaila 1930). As a result, philosophers (and mathematicians)attribute the character of pure to concepts, which they assume to have become abstractedfrom all roots of concrete experience. This has for instance been one of the claims of

formalism, i.e. the idea, that one can consider only the form of something, devoid of anycontents. What instead happens psychically, is that the empirical meanings gathered byconcrete experiences become so intuitivized and repressed into the unconscious (here theFreudian notion fits relatively well), that it appears to introspection as if one can use theconcept without. But under close inspection of intuition, this can be shown not to be the case.

But James not only criticizes philosophers for their psychically inconsistent concept ofconsciousness, but also psychologists (and physiologists) for adopting this conceptuncritically, especially by giving it a physiological meaning (which of course is problematic ifit is a psychical or psychophysical construction). For the origin of this epistemologicalinconsistency, one has to go back to the origin of the use of consciousness in physiology.Wernicke (in 1879 and in a further discussion in 1880), as a psychiatrist and one of the first to

adapt the concept of consciousness to brain functions, describes the inherent problems: Thesum of the memory images (Erinnerungsbilder) transferred spatially the whole cortex Icalled consciousness and thereby had won a spatial and anatomic basis for a psychical thing,which could not be exactly defined. But I did not miss the awkwardness, which lies in such anaming. As the mental processes up to now had never been brought into a definite relationwith the brain, but had been the object of an own discipline, which is philosophy, therefore itwas not to be expected, that the concepts put up by philosophy would correspond with theones derived from the properties of the brain. One therefore has to, where an expression formental properties, conditions or processes is used, determine its sense as exactly as possible,but the terminology of Philosophy could not everywhere be avoided, because it at the sametime makes up an indispensible part of our German vocabulary. So it was with the wordconsciousness; because of linguistic usage it seemed justified, but criticisable as aphilosophical terminus.

This problem unfortunately seems to have become forgotten in later use in a processof intuitive hiding, just as James has predicted. What then of course becomes especiallyproblematic here is the unconscious inheritance of the intuitive meanings of consciousnessconveyed by millennia of philosophical tradition in Western scientific concepts. As becomesclear from Wernicke, the use of the concept of consciousness in physiology was not due to asynthesis, but a matter of default. It is therefore still necessary to work on a synthesis in thesense of James.

The effects of intuition on mathematical thoughtCan William James hiding of intuitive thought be observed as a general phenomenon ofthe psychology of science? I will take the role of mathematics in developing scientific thoughtand the intuitions of science as an example, as here the effects of this phenomenon are mostprominent. From the point of view of intuition, it is for instance curious that mathematicsshould be considered the clearest of all sciences.38 The clearness depends on the point of

38 It is not by chance that what is considered the foundational article of pragmatism by C.S. Pierce is titledHow to Make Our Ideas Clear. This was then also the point, where the logician Pierce saw the difference tothe psychologist James (in a letter to James published in Perry 1935, p. 437): I just have one lingering whish[]. It is that you, if you are not too old, would try to learn to think with more exactitude. [] but perhaps I donot sufficiently take account of other psychical conditions than purely rational ones. I have often [] pointed

out how far higher is the faculty of reasoning from rather inexact ideas than of reasoning from formaldefinitions; and though I am so bound up in my narrow methods as often to lament that you could not furnish mewith the exact forms that I am skilled in dealing with [] Pierce admires James skill in coming close to thetruth nevertheless and especially his ability of transmitting ideas to an audience understandably. The origins of


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view. While mathematics is the most clear from a logical perspective, it hides thepsychological process leading to new mathematical ideas. Thus, from the psychological pointof view, especially regarding the analysis of the intuitive process, it is very unclear.

What do I mean by this psychological opacity? Mathematics played an importantrole in the psychological development of science. For instance, in the case of the Copernican

versus the Ptolemaic world view, mathematics helped to describe the phenomenon, i.e. theanomalies of planetary movement discovered after the Aristotelian synthesis. Mathematicswas used to attach the anomalies of planetary movement to the theory in retrospect asepicycles. These auxiliary descriptions, as well as idealizations, such as Newtonianfrictionless movement, after a while became an intuitively integral part of the theory.Scientists started to assume them as empirical.39 Through the abstraction of mathematics,scientific ideas and intuitions can be described more economically. But at the same time, theirempirical or metaphysical origin becomes more obscured as a result. Epistemologically, onetherefore has to keep the roles of the physikos and the mathematikos clearly apart in ordernot to be confused in intuitive processes (see Krafft 1964). As we will see later, these rolesadditionally have methodological implications for the formation of intuitions in science.

One might still think that these intuitive phenomena in science happened long ago andhave no bearing on modern scientific thought. The (intuitive) mathematician Hadamardprovides an example for such phenomena in modern mathematical thinking, regarding theorigins of formalism as it was developed by Hilbert. Hadamard (1945, p. 87/88) describes itas

[] another rigorous treatment of the principles of geometry, which, logically speaking,has been fully freed from any appeal to intuition, has been developed on quite differentbasis by the celebrated mathematician Hilbert. His beginning, which is now classic amongmathematicians, is Let us consider three systems of things. The things composing thefirst system, we will callpoints; those of the second, we will call straight lines, and thoseof the third system, we will callplanes, clearly meaning that we ought by no means toinquire what those things may represent.

Logically, of course and this is all that is essential the result announced is fullyattained and every intervention of geometrical sense eliminated: that is, theoreticallyunnecessary to follow the reasoning from the beginning to the end. Is it the same from thepsychological point of view? Certainly not. There is no doubt that Hilbert, in working outhis Principles of Geometry, has been constantly guided by his geometrical sense. Ifanybody could doubt that (which no mathematician will), he ought simply to cast oneglance at Hilberts book. Diagrams appear at practically every page. They do not hampermathematical readers in ascertaining that, logically speaking, no concrete picture isneeded.

From this, Hadamard (1945, p. 112) concludes: This carries, in the first place, theconsequence that, strictly speaking, there is hardly any completely logical discovery. Someintervention of intuition issuing from the unconscious is necessary at least to initiate thelogical work. The question is more, if the results of intuitions are already in consciousness atthe time when the introspection begins. One sees that there can be apparent logicians, whoare logical in the enunciation of their ideas, after having been intuitive in their discovery. []There is often a great difference between the discovery of an idea and its enunciation.(Hadamard 1945, p. 113) Thus, reason and logic are (re)constructed in retrospect. We shall

pragmatism shall not be further considered here, but they bear a close relation to the topic discussed here and

have not been properly researched as yet.39 This happened for instance in the assumption of the quest of saving the phenomena. The question thenbecomes, what is the meaning of saving. As a result, the metapsychical relation between thephysikos and themathematikos changes and needs to be observed in detail, see Kraft (1964).


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have a closer look into Hadamards hypothesis and its bearings on the relation between themathematikos and the physikos later.

Since Hadamards time, one telling aspect has changed in the intuition ofmathematicians. Today, many mathematicians would doubt the role of intuition. The idea ofpure mathematics is built on this assumption. One can see this as an example of the intuitive

process in science: Constant repetition of mainly theoretical concepts also increases theirstrength in intuition (see for instance Binet 1910). This has happened several times inmathematics during history, for instance through Euclid. Because of Euclids omission ofdescribing the intuitive methods he must have used40 and due to his dominance in geometry,many people started assuming that geometry is independent of the empirical experience andmeasurement of bodies.

Emotion and the role of empiricismIn order to mentally work against the problems related to this type of intuitive abstraction atthe beginning of scientific construction processes, James and Mach proposed to implementempiricism as a continuous checks and balances of intuitivized habits of thoughts. One

would think that this is done by experience anyway, but as James (1905b; 1967, p. 206)observed: I speak also of ideas which we might verify if we would take the trouble, butwhich we hold for true although unterminated perceptually, because nothing says no to us,and there is no contradicting truth in sight. To continue thinking unchallenged is, ninety-ninetimes out of a hundred, our practical substitute for knowing in the completed sense. As eachexperience runs by cognitive transition into the next one, and we nowhere feel a collision withwhat we elsewhere count as truth or fact, we commit ourselves to the current as if the portwere sure.

James then continues even more emphatically We live as it were, upon the front edgeof an advancing wave-crest, and our sense of a determinate direction in falling forward is allwe cover of the future of our path. According to Perry, James wrote on the margins ofMachs Erkenntnis und Irrtum (Knowledge and Error): W. J., but not emphatic enough(see Thiele 1978, p. 174). Mach would probably have agreed to the first and second quotationfrom James, but not to the last. One can see here the difference in James more speculativeand Machs more careful analysis. If one observes children when they learn walking, theyneed to lose their balance. We need to fall in order to take a step. If they take the step beforethey are surefooted enough, they are really likely to fall, which of cause they try to avoid. Theresult is an adaptive process between daring and carefulness. As a child, James would havehad more bleeding noses, Mach would have been more careful in trying. The latter method isnot necessarily the slower in learning as James supposed in his comment if one noticesand eliminates the problems earlier with it. Their different solutions are thus also due to their

difference in character.Did Mach with his approach find a problem which the late James overlooked? Jamesintuition which he expresses in the sentences above is obviously dependent on character. It isdependent on a specific construction of the self. Here he fully follows Bergsons emotionalconcept of intuition. I can not help that, however, for I, too, have my intuitions and I mustobey them. (James 1904; 1967, p. 183) James generalizes from his own intuition to thecharacter of everybody (every self), which at least in the case of Mach as we saw does notfit as a description. James intuition in this case is not universal, although he assumes it to beuniversal. And in this sense then, Machs approach to intuition has its advantage over James:it is more widely applicable. James speaks of it as we shall see later, but he does not apply itthoroughly as it is counterintuitive to some of his intuitions. Here we can also observe that the

more intuitions are foundational (for instance to the concept of self), the more difficult they40 This effect (the process of the origin of ideas becoming unconscious) in mathematics will be described more indetail later.


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are to change, which is also an inherent difficulty to the ideas from James and Mach onintuition in principle.

A property cannot exist without empirical reference. One can easily test this by tryingto teach somebody the abstracted property without its empirical meaning. The answer in thosecases very often is that the person is considered just too stupid to understand. That this

assumption is an insufficient explanation, can be tested by teaching the empirical meaningwith the property. The difference tends to be empirically staggering (see for instance Siemsen1981, Siemsen & Siemsen 2009, Siemsen 2009b). Pure (as in pure mathematics) thusacquires the meaning of everything else hidden in intuition.

James and Machs genetic questionsJames discussed this point with Mach (see Mach 1896, p. 151 footnote) and Mach basicallyagreed with James perspective. Nevertheless, Mach saw this similar to Avenariusintrojection (i.e. the mistaking of the inner for the outer world by continuous efforts toobjectivise) as merely one specific form of a more general phenomenon of the psychology ofscience. James and Avenarius found specific forms of the workings of intuition in science.

These forms were initial simplifications, which in the long run resulted in inconsistencies.Mach proposed that this is a more general psychological phenomenon in science: the processof intuition resulting from an economy of thought. The Machian principle of thoughteconomy is a continuous optimization41 process, constantly requiring adaptation. It is agenetic process. Science is just a specifically refined version of it.

James in the end of his article on DoesConsciousness Exist? gives a summary ofthe genetic task for psychology after discarding the concept of consciousness: If one were tomake an evolutionary construction of how a lot of originally chaotic pure experiences becamegradually differentiated into an orderly inner and outer world, the whole theory would turnupon ones success in explaining how or why the quality of an experience, once active, couldbecome less so, and, from being an energetic attribute in some cases, elsewhere lapse into thestatus of an inert or merely internal nature. This would be the evolution of the psychicalfrom the bosom of the physical, in which the aesthetic, moral and otherwise emotionalexperiences would represent halfway stage. (James 1904; 1967, p. 182) But a last cry ofnon possumus will probably go up from many readers. All very pretty as a piece ofingenuity, they will say, but our consciousness itself intuitively contradicts you. We, for ourpart, know that we are conscious. Wefeel our thought, flowing as a life within us, in absolutecontrast with the objects which it so unremittingly escorts. We can not be faithless to thisimmediate intuition. The dualism is a fundamental datum: Let no man join what God as putasunder.

My reply to this is my last word, and I greatly grieve that to many it will sound

materialistic. I cannot help that, however, for I, too, have my intuitions and I must obey them.[ Consciousness] is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts inthe concrete are made of the same stuff as things are. (James 1904; 1967, p. 183)

As James states, he is criticizing the concept of matter as well as consciousness. If onetakes an object and now considers it to be a body, does it change? And if so, what of it doeschange and why? Would it be a body without us thinking of it as one? Would we still considerit a body when its molecules, atoms, electrons have disintegrated in some thousands of years?If our perception of time would be the one of Konrad Lorenzs (1959) Chronos, for whom athousand years are like a second, would we consider the object or the body as a processinstead or not notice it at all as it would vanish in an instant? Does a body or an object

41 Economy in economics is the optimization of the result (from several variables) and not a minimum processsuch as Occams razor. As the environment and the process itself continuously changes, every optimum is sub-optimal in the long run. Reaching a higher optimum thereby often requires adaptations (e.g. investments)involving a temporary reduction of the result.


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therefore exist only, because of our perception of time? James sees the solution to thisconundrum in a genetic approach, a concept which he by-and-large took from Mach as wehave seen from his letters in the beginning.

Mach develops James critique into a genetic analysis.42 I think that one should notbegin ones philosophical considerations with a ready, fixed theory which will not let go of

us. The core of my explication lies in the demonstration of Fig. I43

of the Analysis. We getto it by observing our children and by thinking ourselves back into our early youth, as we justbegin to differentiate between our body and its surrounding. There we do not know anythingabout matter and spirit, of physical and psychical, of object and subject, of stimulus andperception. All still consists of similar parts ABCD , which by themselves are neitherphysical nor psychical, but neutral, indifferent. Physical and psychical they become onlybecause of the special form of dependency, which we take into account. [] Now we have toresearch everything either from the physical or from the psychic side. If one time the tunnelbetween the physical and psychical will be built or nearly built we will probably not belimited to this. [] The astronomers from today know that the Ptolemaic and the Copernicanworld view both are conventional practical limitations, and that one can allow oneself a freer

type of question. (Mach 1920, p. 434)In the following, one area of intuitive phenomena will be described in detail, because

of its specific role in science, namely phenomena of invention in the mathematical field. Itshows exemplarily both sides: how intuition develops science and how science and theconcepts of intuition and consciousness as part of it have developed.

4. Intuition and introspective cases of intuition in science

The concept of intuition has a long history, in general language, but also in psychology. It waseven used by people, such as Bergson and Poincar as a basis for philosophical andmathematical programs. The concept has therefore acquired many (often inconsistent)meanings. Is the concept of intuition still inconsistent today? My hypothesis is that it is stillinconsistent (for examples, see for instance Hassin et al. 2005 or Lakoff & Nez 2000),

42 As I will show, Mach had these ideas before James, who rather took them from Mach and developed somesimilar ones on his own in parallel.43 Fig. I in the Analysis of Sensations depicts the famous view from the left eye, in which one sees the roomin which Mach is as viewed from his left eye (including perspective, his own body lying on the couch and hishand raised as if drawing this picture, as well as less detailing on the outer parts of the picture). The unusual partis that this view includes the frame of the view as part of it by depicting also the eyelid, nose and moustache, sothe parts of ones view, which are normally abstracted from and not seen consciously, but only intuitively,especially if both eyes are open. In the Analysis, Mach comments that if one is observing an element A in thefield of vision and investigates its relation to another element B of the same field, one transverses from the fieldof physics to the one of physiology or psychology if B passes the skin. It thereby seamlessly passes the usual

(intuitive) epistemological cut between physics, physiology and psychology (where the phenomena andconcepts of one would end and the other would begin). In this (and many other psychophysicalexperiments), Mach found no meaningful epistemological cut (especially not the skin) and thereby concludedthat physics, physiology and psychology must ultimately be one. Conceptual unities, such as body or egoare only makeshifts, designed for provisional orientation and for definite practical ends (so that we may takehold of bodies, protect ourselves against pain, and so forth), we find ourselves obliged, in many more advancedscientific investigations, to abandon them as insufficient and inappropriate. The antithesis between ego andworld, between sensation (appearance) and thing, then vanishes, and we have simply to deal with the connexionof the elements [], of which this antithesis was only a partially appropriate and imperfect expression. [] Thephilosophical spiritualist is often sensible of the difficulty of imparting the needed solidity to his mind-createdworld of bodies; the materialist is at a loss when required to endow the world of matter with sensation. Themonistic point of view, which reflexion has evolved, is easily clouded by our older and more powerful intuitivenotions. (Mach 1914, p. 13/14) The idea of this, Mach developed in 1870 after reading the philosopher C.F.

Krause, who had written Problem: To carry out the self-inspection of the Ego. Solution: It is carried outimmediately. In order to illustrate in a humorous manner this philosophical much ado about nothing, and at thesame time to show how the self-inspection of the Ego could be really carried out, I embarked on the abovedrawing. (Mach 1914, p. 20). Possible to reprint?


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which is why I propose a deconstruction and reconstruction of the concept in the first place.But before, I will briefly give examples of two interrelated areas, which have specificallyadded to this inconsistency, namely language and concept formation.

Problems of language and concept formation

The first problem one encounters in this direction is one of concepts and their translation:Many of the concepts have been taken back and fourth between languages such as Greek,Latin, French, German and English. As a result, also their properties changed substantially,often without the scientists involved noticing. For instance the German word Anschauung,which was often used by Kant in different contexts, has been translated into English into sodifferent terms as image, sensual, non-sensuous and pure visualization, intuition orapperception.44 A similar concept, but which is more based on memory called Vorstellungwas translated in Machs Knowledge and Erroras intuition. Additionally, of course, themeanings of these concepts by Mach and by Kant are very different. Even for one author andthe same book it can be different. Machs Mechanics has gone through seven editions byMach himself with several hundred pages added and changed in the process. One time there

was even a book reprinting only the changes made in the latest German edition relative to thelast English edition. Also during this time, Mach changed his world view at least two times.Because of this, he necessarily adapted the meaning of many of his concepts.45

The accumulation of such problems led to many misunderstandings and confusionsstill currently prevalent especially in the English speaking world. These effects have beenadditionally enhanced as a result of the enculturation problem already mentioned due to theWorld Wars and the breaks they caused in the transmission of knowledge. But theseenculturation effects were already considered a problem before the wars. William Jameshimself criticized (for instance in his lectures to teachers) the scientific fashions resultingfrom the arbitrary use of terminology. This problem led to confusion and imprecision in themeanings of concepts until today and has been especially prevalent in psychology. Oneaspect, which has a strong connection with this problem, is that an increasing epistemologicalwedge can be observed between the direct sensual experience and the theoretical reflectionabout it. This difference led James to the radical formulation of his empiricism.

In order to avoid these confusions, the definition of intuition used here is a positiveattempt of reconstruction in order to replace the concept of the unconscious in the geneticsense. My starting point46 is the concept of the unconscious, which I defined as notaccessible to conscious introspection. From this starting point, a positive concept of intuitionwill be developed in the following by first looking into intuitive phenomena in mathematics.From this, the concept will be successively enlarged by adding more descriptions ofunconscious phenomena of thought from other sciences and from the general genesis of

thoughts. In the last part of the chapter I will try to form a consistent theoretical frameworkfor developing the concept further. Based on this genetic adaptive approach, the intuitivephenomena mentioned here make no claim to completeness. On the contrary, by the multiple-genetic approach taken, probably more phenomena of intuition can be integrated or found infuture research.

Intuition in mathematics

44 On the difficulties that the translation of these concepts between German and English pose, even forprofessional translators, see for instancehttp://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=370933&idForum=1&lp=ende&lang=de.45 For example, Mach adapted his central concept of thought economy from a minimum principle of

parsimony to a much more complex optimization principle.46 I am well aware that this is of course not necessarily the starting point of the reader. This is why in theprevious part I tried to provide a historical-genetic account of the epistemological questions leading to thisstarting point.


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The following view on intuition will first concern empirical facts focused on a specific area,which then can be used to construct a common, more general empirical meaning of intuition.This area will concern the hardest area, which from the perspective of otherepistemologies would be seen as the furthest away from the position elaborated here. If onetakes a normal stand of assuming knowledge as the iceberg (partly above the water), what

would most people from this perspective regard as the very tip of the iceberg? Probablymathematics. From a rationalist perspective, what would one consider the most rational one?Probably logic and mathematics. Both mathematics and logic see each other as a part ofthemselves. They also assume their foundations as similar and many foundational concepts(such as truth, construction, computation) are the same. As mathematics is considered themore initial of the two, it will be the first focus.47 For the purposes of this chapter, I willadditionally focus on the question of the very, very tip of the iceberg, so on the process ofhow new mathematics is developed. This narrow initial focus will then successively bebroadened by adding examples from other sciences and finally from the development of theintuitive process in childhood. These ideas are then applied to the broader empirical contextsof facts concerning intuition.

The probably most known case of intuition in science and one described explicitly forpsychologists48 is certainly Poincars experience on the genesis of mathematical discovery(Poincar 1908; 2003, p. 46) during discovering a new type of mathematical functions.49 Ishall say for example, that I have found a theorem under such circumstances. This theoremwill have a barbarous name, unfamiliar to many, but that is unimportant; what is of interestfor the psychologist is not the theorem, but the circumstances. Poincar originally wrote thearticle for Alfred BinetsLanne Psychologique.50

A mathematical demonstration is not a simple juxtaposition of syllogisms; it consistsof syllogismsplaced in a certain order, and the order in which these elements are placed ismuch more important than the elements themselves. If I have the feeling, so to speak theintuition, of this order, so that I can perceive the whole of the argument at a glance, I need nolonger be afraid of forgetting one of the elements; each of them will place itself naturally in

47 As Wittgenstein noted (in F.P. Ramseys exemplar of the Tractatus 1922; 2003, p. 113) The beginning oflogic presupposes calculation and so number. Genetic considerations would agree with this logical result. It willnevertheless be possible to show that in such other tip of the iceberg areas of science as logic or physics, theobservations are probably similar.48 Materialists (and behaviourists in particular in psychology) may object that many of the followingobservations are taken from introspection and not from a third-person perspective. This objection will notconcern us here for several reasons: First, this article is explicitly based on a different epistemology. Thisepistemology considers no differences between the first and the third person perspective in their respectivephysical and mathematical intuitions, i.e. the measurements, calculations and apparatus, which the so called

third-person perspective is mainly built upon. This is basically the same criticism, which the proponents of thethird-person perspective in psychology use in the first place, only here it is applied metapsychological. As bothepistemologies are aimed at dissolving an inherently dualist concept of consciousness, at least part of the waymight be less different than it seems initially. This is because we secondly want to observe inconsistencies of theconcept of consciousness by introspection, so seen from its own perspective (in this respect it confirms to thethird-person perspective). The view I present here is internally consistent and (as I will argue) observes more ofintuitive phenomena than a materialistic perspective.49 It is interesting to note here that Poincar had the idea partly from a survey developed by the psychologists ofthe Rousseau Institute in Geneva, Flournoy and Claparde. They also had a close contact with Binet. Clapardesstudent and successor at the institute was Piaget (for details and the relation to Mach, see Siemsen 2010b).Claparde then organized a series of lectures in 1937 at the Centre de Synthse on invention in various sciencesto which Poincars student and successor Hadamard attended. Inspired from this, Hadamard (1945) continuedmore detailed research in Poincars direction. Many of the following examples are taken from this work.50 Binet made an interesting reply to the article in which he basically states that Poincars description is notgeneralizable. He is not able to immediately synthesize Poincars results with his psychological concepts,although at the time he had developed concepts, which would have made this possible, such as his concept ofmental orthopaedics. Unfortunately, Binet dies shortly afterwards. See also Siemsen (2010b).


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the position prepared for it, without my having to make any effort of memory.51 []Discovery, as I have said, is selection. But this is perhaps not the right word. It suggests apurchaser who has been shown a large number of samples, and examines them one after theother in order to make his selection. In our case the samples would be so numerous that awhole life would not give sufficient time to examine them. Things do not happen in this way.

Unfruitful combinations do not so much as present themselves to the mind of the discoverer.In the field of his consciousness there never appear any but really useful combinations, andsome that he rejects, which, however, partake to some extent of the character of usefulcombinations. Everything happens as if the discoverer were a second examiner who had onlyto interrogate candidates declared eligible after passing a preliminary test. (Poincar 2003,pp. 49-52)

Then Poincar introspectively describes his experiences: Every day I sat down at mytable and spent an hour or two trying a great number of combinations, and I arrived at noresult. One night I took some black coffee, contrary to my custom, and was unable to sleep. Ahost of ideas kept surging in my head; I could almost feel them jostling one another, until twoof them coalesced, so to speak, to form a stable combination. [] Then I wished to represent

these [Fuchsian] functions by the quotient of two series. This idea was perfectly consciousand deliberate; I was guided by the analogy with elliptical functions. [] At this moment Ileft Caen [] The incidents of the journey made me forget my mathematical work. When wearrived at Coutances, we got into a break to go for

Siemsen Intuition in Science

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