Dismantling the Obvious & Caring for Intuition
For a conversation to be effective, rich and clear we must not give in to the temptation of assuming what we consider to be obvious; both for us and for the other person. If the premise we are starting from seems to be an obvious one, this only reinforces the importance of knowing it better and better and, furthermore, of being able to act on it in our conversations.
There is more than one reason not to engage in this exercise. The first is the meaning of "obvious". Obviousness is a judgement we make about what we think we have understood about something or someone. It can also be the presumption that we know what someone else has understood. Like all judgements, it is a shortcut, a time and energy saver. But the use of obviousness cannot be explained only by its economic dimension.
Giving in to the obvious may also have to do with a belief in the intelligence of others, which some will call naivety. It may also be because we want to validate or verify that intelligence.
We may, on the contrary, want to make our intelligence evident to the other, by assuming that something that has not been understood is "obvious" to us. In the same vein, it can serve to make us "mysterious" in the eyes of the other. Hidden interests may also feed the use of obviousness, both our own, when we want to hide them, and when we intuit or perceive that they may exist in the other.
All these reasons, perhaps with the exception of the first, more primary one, have something in common: they foster lack of clarity. We can thus hypothesise: obviousness produces obscurity.
For instance, when driving, even though it is obvious for us that we want to turn right, by not "blinking" we will be taking serious risks. If in a conversation we do not make public what is private, internal and obvious, if we do not make ourselves predictable, without the negative connotation of the word, what risks are we running? What are we losing and what are we gaining?
Of course, these dynamics are influenced by the context, our interpretation of it, our interlocutor(s) and, consequently, the judgements we construct about them and them about us.
The link between obviousness and intuition
Today there seems to be a tendency to value intuition above knowledge or wisdom. It seems to be common to allow ourselves to be seduced by a "brilliant" idea without occupying ourselves with its foundation and without dedicating ourselves to reflecting in a critical and ideally shared way. This kind of work seems to take the shine off ideas, forcing one to navigate outside the field of entertainment and "intuition"; as if reflection and depth were the enemy of interest.
What is intuition? The dictionary tells us that it is "instinctive perception", "immediate knowledge" and "presentiment of the truth". Intuition seems to be, then, something that we deduce or conclude by presentiment. Therefore, it is something we sense before we feel. These meanings seem to depart from those linked to the Latin origin of the word. Intuir originally meant "to look at", "to consider", "to contemplate" and "to examine".
We risk a hypothesis: intuition is the capacity to foresee, to foresee something that has not yet happened or is happening in an unmanifest way. It will not be difficult, therefore, to associate intuition with magical thinking. But if we consider intuition as prediction/foresight, it does not have to be the only source of analysis or understanding.
Félix Ravaisson, French philosopher, in his essay "On Habit" gives us the idea that intuiting is the inability to distinguish what we are from what we think.
“A inteligência obscura que através do hábito substitui a reflexão, esta inteligência imediata onde sujeito e objecto se confundem, é uma intuição real, onde o real e o ideal, ser e pensamento estão fundidos.”
Using deduction, logic, memory, experience and if we add to these the affections, then, we believe, intuition will be more supported on reflection and less on magic, without losing its sometimes inexplicable component and, therefore, its charm. For example, the famous character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, enchants with his skills which sometimes appear to be magical but are in fact the result of sophisticated deductive and reflexive abilities. One wonders whether this was one of the reasons why Conan Doyle created Sherlock. To show us that the inexplicable, with a good dose of intelligence and dedication, can be understood without resorting to magic.
We believe that it will be the ability to remain enamoured by the grounding, the connection and the contextualisation of our reflections that will give them corpulence, richness and that, as a consequence, will nurture the quality of our conversations.
Apparently the ideas of Socrates, the Greek, have not been as successful as we think. Knowledge and awareness do not invalidate or diminish intuition; perhaps they enhance it. But this will imply ceasing to evoke intuition as a way of camouflaging laziness.
