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Intuition and Technological Artifice: The Interplay of Their Importance

Received: 10 March 2020    Accepted: 20 July 2020    Published: 28 July 2020
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Abstract

The simple or elementary meanings of intuition and technological artifice are not so simple or elementary when they are joined together. Nevertheless, their combined importance helps to explain how free choice underscores creativity. In reference to intuition, emphasis is placed upon the concentration of mental powers, and in reference to technological artifice, emphasis is placed upon an ability that facilitates invention. Technological artifice is open-ended and may serve any cause, but regardless of its means, it remains an uncertainty. The interplay between intuition and technological artifice is expressed by the intuitive ability to observe something closely or to manifest a concentration of mental powers, but also the ability to invent or innovate. The thought of thinkers from Aristotle to the present are discussed indicating that intuition is always dependent upon the world and does not precede it. Although invention and its modification by means of innovation require technological artifice, the latter is not and will never be self-contained. Intuition remains a necessity in order for technological artifice to operate, as it confirms that consciousness in general is distinct from self-consciousness, and yet is coexistent with it. When expressed in metaphysical terms, non-being (that which does not exist) is the source where reality originates, including techno- logical artifice. The revealing of being from non-being occurs through the act of becoming in which being is manifested from non-being. Technological artifice is the result of this becoming.

Published in Science, Technology & Public Policy (Volume 4, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13
Page(s) 60-68
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Intuition, Technological Artifice, Becoming

References
[1] Dominique Bourg, L’homme artifice: le sens de la technique, [Paris]: Gallimard, 1996, p. 20, affirms that artifice and artifact must be separated.
[2] Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, bk. II, 19 (99b26-100a14), and Metaphysics, bk. XIII, 10 (1087a15-25). See Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, vol. I, pp. 165-66, and vol. II, p. 1718 respectively. Also see Victor Kal, On Intuition and Discursive Reasoning, Philosophia Antiqua, vol. 46, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988, pp. 44-53, esp. pp. 46 and 48.
[3] René Descartes, “Discourse on the Method,” part IV in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, eds. [and trans.] John Cottingham, et al., 3 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985-1991, vol. I (1985), p. 127.
[4] René Descartes, “Rules for the Direction of the Mind,” rule 3 in ibid., Vol. I, pp. 14-15.
[5] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. & ed. Paul Guyer & Allen W. Wood, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, A20/B34 (pp. 155-56) and A51/B75 (p. 193). Also see Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 158-60.
[6] For Kant, concepts must be a priori because they are needed in order for us to be able to think about objects, although his interpretation of a priori intuition is different from and not parallel to his interpretation of a priori concepts.
[7] Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire: Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit, 2nd ed., Paris: Félix Alcan, 1900, p. 202, and rendered into English in Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul & W. Scott Palmer, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1911, pp. 238-39.
[8] Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911; rpt. Lanham: University Press of America, 1983, pp. 176-77 and 182.
[9] Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay from the Second German Edition of Logische Untersuchungen, 2 vols., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, vol. II (Investigation VI), sect. 45, pp. 784-86.
[10] Edmund Husserl, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science” in Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. with notes and an introduction by Quentin Lauer, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965, pp. 110-15. Although parallel to Husserl’s understanding of eidetic intuition, Heidegger’s interpretation is grounded in existentiality, which is similar to Husserl’s view, but with different terminology. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson, New York: Harper & Row, 1962, para. 31, p. 187. Furthermore, Heidegger’s lectures on intuition given in 1920 that are preserved in his Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression: Theory of Philosophical Concept Formation, trans. Tracy Colony, London: Continuum, 2010, describe intuition with two derivations: a priori circumstances and lived experiences. Although a priori circumstances may be accurate because they are antecedent to action, the derivation of lived experiences must be inaccurate because they do not precede intuition and are consequent to a priori.
[11] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. and with an introduction by Hazel E. Barnes, New York: Philosophical Library, 1956, p. 172. It cannot be affirmed that all knowledge is intuitively based. Despite a criticism of positivism and transcendentalism, Sartre’s preoccupation with intuitive knowledge as the only meaningful knowledge is an exaggeration because it relegates all discursive knowledge to a subordinate position, or disregards it altogether. The claim that all knowledge is intuitive cannot be affirmed because many areas of learning, particularly science and mathematics, would be unattainable if it were true.
[12] Hilary Kornblith, “The Role of Intuition in Philosophical Inquiry: An Account with No Unnatural Ingredients,” in Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, eds. Michael R. DePaul & William Ramsey, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, p. 134.
[13] Gilbert Simondon, On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, trans. Cécile Malaspina & John Rogove, Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2017, p. 235.
[14] Justus Buchler, The Concept of Method, New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 85.
[15] The meaning of artifice as described in this paper should not be confused with a corporate type that has been described as a “systematized research regime” when referring to its application of business or commercial rules and regulations within a capitalistic society. See Luis Suarez-Villa, Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatism, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009, pp. 129-32. In our sense, artifice relates to an open-ended ability to invent or devise something that may be followed by innovation. It takes an ontological approach to technology. Artifice as a systematized research regime pertains to a corporate experimentalism that uses invention or innovation for profit. It takes a methodological approach to technology.
[16] Although technological artifice is described in other publications, many of these publications emphasize its historical, not its metaphysical importance. In all honesty, we should state that it is historically inaccurate to say that “only modern technology has an artifice,” even when giving support to its history, but nevertheless it is accurate to say that “only the technological age has technology accompanied by an elaborately and technically-devised framework.” The difference between these two statements concerns not only that all cultures have technological artifice as a normal consequence of their being, but also that the modern age has increased its artifice to such an extent as to intensify, consolidate, heighten, and strengthen its importance. These differences should be noted. See Theodore John Rivers, “The Conception of Time and Its Relationship to Technology,” Research in Philosophy and Technology, 19 (2000), 216.
[17] Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World: Pseudoproblems in Philosophy, 2nd ed., trans. Rolf A. George, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, sect. 54, p. 89.
[18] Ibid., sect. 181, pp. 295-96.
[19] Tony Bastick, Intuition: How we think and act, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1982, p. 309. Although intuition is generally thought to be the first component of creativity, non-intuitive creativity may be considered if engineering projects result from systematic or algorithmic methods as discussed in G. S. [Genrikh Saulovich] Altshuller, Creativity as an Exact Science: The Theory of the Solution of Inventive Problems, trans. Anthony Williams, New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1984, pp. 39-47, esp. pp. 42-43, that questions the reliability of experience or “natural gifts” as a suitable basis for creativity.
[20] Michael Polanyi & Harry Prosch, Meaning, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975, p. 96.
[21] William Shakespeare, King Henry the Sixth, part III, act IV, scene 7.
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    Theodore John Rivers. (2020). Intuition and Technological Artifice: The Interplay of Their Importance. Science, Technology & Public Policy, 4(2), 60-68. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13

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    Theodore John Rivers. Intuition and Technological Artifice: The Interplay of Their Importance. Sci. Technol. Public Policy 2020, 4(2), 60-68. doi: 10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13

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    Theodore John Rivers. Intuition and Technological Artifice: The Interplay of Their Importance. Sci Technol Public Policy. 2020;4(2):60-68. doi: 10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13,
      author = {Theodore John Rivers},
      title = {Intuition and Technological Artifice: The Interplay of Their Importance},
      journal = {Science, Technology & Public Policy},
      volume = {4},
      number = {2},
      pages = {60-68},
      doi = {10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.stpp.20200402.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.stpp.20200402.13},
      abstract = {The simple or elementary meanings of intuition and technological artifice are not so simple or elementary when they are joined together. Nevertheless, their combined importance helps to explain how free choice underscores creativity. In reference to intuition, emphasis is placed upon the concentration of mental powers, and in reference to technological artifice, emphasis is placed upon an ability that facilitates invention. Technological artifice is open-ended and may serve any cause, but regardless of its means, it remains an uncertainty. The interplay between intuition and technological artifice is expressed by the intuitive ability to observe something closely or to manifest a concentration of mental powers, but also the ability to invent or innovate. The thought of thinkers from Aristotle to the present are discussed indicating that intuition is always dependent upon the world and does not precede it. Although invention and its modification by means of innovation require technological artifice, the latter is not and will never be self-contained. Intuition remains a necessity in order for technological artifice to operate, as it confirms that consciousness in general is distinct from self-consciousness, and yet is coexistent with it. When expressed in metaphysical terms, non-being (that which does not exist) is the source where reality originates, including techno- logical artifice. The revealing of being from non-being occurs through the act of becoming in which being is manifested from non-being. Technological artifice is the result of this becoming.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • John Adams High School, New York, USA

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