Intuition, Creativity, Innovation

1 Understanding Intuition

We will start by exploring intuition from the point of view of etymology, history, and philosophy in order to explain it later based on current scientific knowledge. Once intuition has been justified scientifically, we will put forward some practical exercises that can test and prove these hypotheses. Explaining rationally the intuition process, which is a priori and essentially irrational, is perhaps a paradox, which will be dispelled in this work.

The etymology of intuition, intueri, intuitio, intuitus, intueor, reveals that intuition can be seen as a spontaneous gush coming from within, an ability to see all at once and a type of immediate knowledge that does not derive from a rational process or logical thinking. The process incorporates a double notion of a series of steps and complexity [HAL 11], so that intuition can then be defined as an intuitional process [HAL 17].

Man’s intuition emanates from within, from his mind and from his unconscious. It is a movement, an inner process that gushes outwards. Intuition is an unconscious¹ process that springs up in our consciousness and requires constant work, like Poincaré’s “intuition effort” [POI 08].

Intuition can be defined as a process, an apperception and an immediate type of knowledge that does not belong to either a cognitive process or an intellectual reflection. According to Kuhn, intuition depends on abnormal experience, in keeping with and acquired through an old paradigm. There is no logical ...