Rationality, Instinct, and Intuition

When it comes to the means to survival, the dichotomy between rationality and instinct presents itself as the matter of all-or-nothing. That is, the idea is that rationality is deemed to be either best fit for self-preservation or a poor substitute for instinct which is, blessed by evolution, most optimal for promoting prosperity. However, the terms themselves are vague in their everyday usage, causing equivocations and conflations. (Even Kant, within whose tradition I locate my arguments, was vulnerable to this fallacy.) I believe that, once the terms are clarified, rationality would turn out to be much more reliable than instinct. Yet, this is due to the employment of rationality’s protégé, viz., intuition.

Here are the provisional definitions for ‘rationality’ and ‘instinct’.

Rationality: the capacity to impose and follow rules

Instinct: the capacity to respond to stimuli (without involving rule-imposing/following)

If you define instinct broadly merely as the capacity to respond to stimuli, rationality is then a kind of instinct as the capacity to respond to stimuli by imposing and following rules. To distinguish between rationality-qua-instinct and other kinds of instinct, we must define instinct as that which involves no rule-imposing/following.

Rules are articulated in terms of concepts (codified in language). In turn, concepts are inferential. Thus, rationality is the capacity to make inferences by employing linguistic items codifying concepts. To go by rules is to undertake a conceptual-linguistic framework. Accordingly, rationality is conceptual-linguistic, and instinct is non-conceptual and non-linguistic (in the sense that it involves no concept or language at all.)

One of the most essential needs of survival is reliability. Affordances (tools, machines, data, etc.) are conducive to self-preservation and prosperity only if they function as expected, for it is through repeatability and reproducibility could we make use of the affordances to control and cope with our surroundings. For instance, a thermometer that records different temperature each time under the same (or similar) circumstances is useless, i.e., unreliable.

Rules represent the reliable patterns in nature (laws of nature) as well as in society (conventions). Thus, it would be much more advantageous to rely on rules than not. For this reason, rationality is the more reliable means to survival. Of course, in understanding the behavioral patterns of non-human animals, we do use conceptual codifications. That is, we describe animals as if they are following rules in their coping. But this is our problem. There is no guarantee that, tomorrow, bears will hibernate or dogs will bark at strangers again. Instincts are capricious and is free to respond to stimuli in whichever way they would like to. Instinctive responses that happen to be fit for the concerned stimuli enable their subject to survive another day, and its species are preserved—but purely accidentally. But there is no reason why the instinct will employ the same response in the next time it is faced with the same stimulus other than out of luck.

The problem with rationality is that this capacity is too rigid and often distal. Rigid, because once rules are determined, it is difficult to overthrow them and find their alternatives. Drawing out patterns from nature takes time, and codified information is inert. Distal, because the mind still needs to figure out how to apply rules in real-life situations. Given the (analytic) rule that water quenches thirst, when and in respect to what should we apply the concept of water, quenching, and thirst? Of various possible causal constraints and brute impulses, which ones should we select as following the patterns of nature?

The rigidity and distality of rationality (and of conceptuality) often leads one to favor and even glorify instinct over rationality as instinct is seen to be more flexible and spontaneous. However, I think that this is a false dichotomy. The given is that instinct is nowhere near the reliability of rationality, but rationality is too rigid and distal in itself. If so, there must be a third way out.

The third horn is intuition. It is through (Kantian) intuition do we make epistemic frictions with the world. Here is the provisional definition of ‘intuition’.

Intuition: the capacity to respond to stimuli as governed and guided by rules

Intuitions themselves do not impose or intentionally follow rules. But they can be molded and shaped by conceptual practices as to be guided in their employment. Thus, in their reports of the world (via sensibility), intuitions provide us with codified information fit for inferential activities. Should we change conceptual frameworks for whatever pragmatic or theoretical needs, intuitions can be retrained accordingly. Since intuitions are still rule-governed, they are under the spell of concepts. Whether they themselves are conceptual or merely phenomenological is up for a debate. (Intuitions could be non-conceptual in the sense that one could be unaware of concepts in employing intuitions.) However, intuitions are certainly distinguished from instincts.

Intuitions are rationality’s solution to its problems, for intuitions are more flexible and less distal. Flexible, because intuitions can be retrained and reshaped. Also, as that through which we make epistemic frictions with the world, intuitions make empirical reports in the form appropriate for examining the soundness of our conceptual framework. Less distal, because intuitions are much more spontaneous and automatic than rationality. Whereas it takes time for rationality to make judgments about applications of rules every time it is employed, intuitions can instantaneously apply rules as trained out of habits.

What must be noted is that intuitions are not independent of rules. As Kant remarked, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” Intuitions provide contents, but these contents are sorted and guided by rule-giving concepts.

Readers of contemporary philosophy will recognize not only that my view on intuition is Kantian, but also that it is relevant to various philosophical ideas and debates: the Sellarsian distinction between ought-to-be and ought-to-do rules, the debate between John McDowell and Hubert Dreyfus, and the top-down and the bottom-up approach to perception and thought. In addition, intuition is the bridge between rationality and virtue ethics (refer to my previous post).