Some might say that as mathematics is seen as an area of knowledge where reason and logic often rule then arts could be seen as an area of knowledge where reason and logic isn’t used as often and perception senses and emotion rule instead.
Art is very personal and quite often requires a lot of imagination. It is also creative and a way to express oneself. Because of this art is emotional, it creates emotional reactions by viewers/listeners/readers and shows the feelings and personality of the artist himself. The artist often writes for example a poem about how the artist feels. Every poem is new and different and so the artist always has to start from scratch which requires intuition. You have to start somewhere and intuition helps to find the right way to go. Intuition in art is also when walking down a street and a melody starts forming in your head or the words to a poem. That is why people who write or compose a lot usually carry with them a small notebook so they can write down all the brilliant ideas that they suddenly come up with. Does art always require intuition and is art always emotional?
When painting a portrait of someone or scenery the artist has a model that needs to be copied. This doesn’t require imagination nor creativity as there is nothing to be invented or made up from scratch because there already is a correct answer, a model to follow. This then makes art reasonable and logical as all that is required of the artist is talent and technique to know how to copy something successfully. Therefore in some cases art does indeed lack intuition and emotion. This also applies when making decisions based on experience. For example if a song producer wants to add some extra flavour to his latest rap-song he knows that a few more yeahs! or increasing the base will do the trick then his decision is based on experience and not intuition.
Our former Theory of Knowledge teacher told us that it is impossible for the human mind to create or think of something that doesn’t already exist. This would then mean that we could literary not think outside the box as this would be beyond our brain capacity. If this is true then every form of art is an attempt to copy something that already exists which according to what was said earlier doesn’t need intuition. Thus it could be said that there is in fact no place for intuition in art. The counter argument would be to say that even though the artist is trying to copy the feeling misery by writing a poem about it he needs a place to start and a way to express his feelings on the subject and to do this he needs his intuition. So that, when writing his poem on misery he would use intuition to find the right words for his poem.
To decide what role intuition plays in economics is a bit trickier. Economics is a human science which means that it studies human behaviour. It is a science, but not as exact as physics. Economic results are difficult to measure and economic policies are hard to prove or disprove. Human behaviour is unpredictable and you can’t properly and successfully label and measure humans and their behaviour. Humans are emotional beings and economics should therefore be more of an emotional science as it studies humans than physics that is cold and logical and lacks feelings. In the case of art and math the general idea was that the more reasonable and logical knowledge area the less emotion and intuition and vice versa. So economics should be knowledge area where intuition is often used. This is might not be true.
Some economists and people in general say that they can feel a depression coming. This sounds as if they have a hunch and are using intuition. This is not the case. It is the conclusion drawn by their subconscious. Using USA’s current economic situation as an example one could predict and feel a depression coming by observing the market. The house market crashed as did the dollar; this is bad news and is very likely to lead to a depression. Intuition is not used, only common sense. When the price of the houses and the dollar fell people started selling off their houses and dollars, not because their intuition told them to but because it is normal human behaviour to want to sell fast and cut your losses. Sadly the selling just resulted in a bigger fall in price. Just like many economists predicted it would, again this was based on knowledge and not intuition. Thus it would seem that intuition has no part in economics. But if you consider the cause for the crash in price you might think otherwise.
The market changes according to peoples expectations. When people feel confident the economy is flourishing and when they lose their confidence the economy experiences a small recession. Economics is a difficult science because nobody knows why and when this happens. It’s like a mass intuition telling people to spend or save their money that controls the market. People control the market and if they use their intuition to make the decisions then economics is the knowledge area where intuition plays the biggest part in because intuition would then control the whole science. Then again the idea of a mass intuition is quite farfetched and so economics might be a science that lacks intuition after all.
We are humans and from time to time we get our hunches that we might chose to react upon or not. In this essay the use of intuition in different knowledge areas has been discussed. It would seem that in the case of mathematics and natural sciences intuition is used the least whereas it is often used in art. Whether intuition is used in economics or not is debatable. Another question that arose during the writing of this essay was if intuition is based on reason or emotion. It would seem that even though we interpret intuition as a feeling it is usually just the logical conclusion our subconscious has drawn. Art might be considered an exception to this as it is so linked with emotion and is often seen as illogical. In conclusion one might say that intuition is used more or less in most knowledge areas and the importance of intuition depends on the knowledge area. Although its importance is not as crucial in all the different knowledge areas the importance of intuition in our everyday life and the decisions we make everyday is crucial.
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