“All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.” – Alexis Carrel

The veracity of this statement can only be true if intuition is indeed a type of knowledge. While it has been an age old debate as to how many types of knowledge are there, for the purposes of this discussion, we shall divide them into three generic categories: empirical, logical, and semantic.

1) Semantic

We have been blessed with the ability to communicate one another using languages. Our depth in semantic knowledge enables us to be proficient in more than one language. Needless to say, intuition is not a type of semantic knowledge. It is unthinkable that someone would be able to speak of a language that he has never learned of by intuition. With that in mind, should we find ourselves having impetuous urges to utter strings of random syllabus or sounds, it will be next to impossible that it will actually make sense.

2) Logical

While logical knowledge may itself branch out to many categories of knowledge, such as mathematics and epistemology, they all share one thing in common, that it requires inductive reasoning. An example of inductive reasoning would be the argument that God must exist because there must be something eternal as a source for everything. A creation can only exist if it is created. Hence, logically, there can never be a beginning if it is started by a finite thing. Hence, something infinite, eternal, and not bound by the rule of time must exist to create the beginning of things which are finite. Intuition, on the other hand, is always made in contradiction to one’s logical analysis. If an action is in fact congruous to logic, then it would have been explicable and could not have been said to be done by intuition. Hence, it is indubitable that intuition is not a type of logical knowledge as well

3) Empirical

This leaves us to our final category of knowledge: empirical knowledge. Empirical knowledge is knowledge which can be proven. It is empirical knowledge that water boils when it reaches 100 Celsius. We can test its veracity through experiments. Empirical knowledge, however, is much more complicated than just proving a hypothesis. Empirical knowledge involves “experiences”. Past experiences will automatically become a future prediction of what will happen. Hence, if there is a clash of logical reasoning and empirical knowledge, it is normal to have the propensity to rely on empirical knowledge. In other words, there is an inextricable link between intuition and empirical knowledge. An infant cannot have an intuition on a matter which he has no relative experiences whatsoever.

With that in mind, it is not surprising that many will choose to follow their intuition, whether it is through some direct or remotely connected past experiences, over logical reasoning. However, it is not always true that empirical knowledge trumps logical reasoning. They both complement each other. In fact, all empirical knowledge must come from a hypothesis which is based on logical analysis. Hence, whenever we have an intuition telling us to do something, it is best to logically think why we have such intuition in the first place, because it may have been based on a remotely irrelevant past experience that may or may not be of value as a reference to the current situation.