This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of intuitions from a variety of traditions. It brings together works by the best specialists working on intuitions in five different traditions: the South Asian tradition, the Chinese tradition, the Japanese tradition, the Arabo-Islamic tradition, and the Western tradition with, in this last case, a focus on philosophy of language and on philosophy of mathematics. It highlights the similarities and differences between the traditions bringing the various perspectives into one volume.

In the Western traditions, a first approximation to the meaning of the term may be to say that we intuit that p, as opposed to, for example, deducing that p, when we believe that p is true but without the mediation of any other belief, that serves as a basis for believing that p. In the naturalistic perspective, intuition is nothing other than the starting point of a rudimentary theory, expressed by classifications or by instances of singular propositions of the form “This is red”, the bona fide evidence of which are uncontroversial because they are commanded by a wide agreement – a perspective shared by South Asian traditions. Topics in this volume include the importance of intuitions in Madhva’s religious epistemology, intuition in early Confucian philosophy, Nishida and active intuition, intuition in Islamic mysticisms, and evidential and rhetorical moves in the study of language. This volume is of interest to researchers and students of intuition.

David Bordonaba-Plou is an assistant professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research focuses on experimental philosophy of language, the role of intuitions, Digital Humanities, and political philosophy of language. He is the principal investigator of the project Intuiciones y Filosofía Experimental del Lenguaje (PID2023-150396OA-I00). In addition to numerous articles, his publications include Experimental Philosophy of Language. Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects (Springer, 2023), (editor).

Asad Q. Ahmed is the Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley and Director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.  His work focuses on Islamic intellectual and social history, especially philosophy, logic, and legal theories. His books include The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Ḥijāz and Palimpsests of Themselves.

Andrew Arana is Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Lorraine, France, and director of the Archives Henri-Poincaré. His domains of specialisation are the history and philosophy of mathematics, logic, and epistemology. He has published on models of arithmetic, purity of methods, proof theory, projective geometry, mathematical depth, and philosophy of mathematics in the Japanese tradition. He is an editor of Philosophers’ Imprint.

Marie-Hélène Gorisse is Assistant Professor in Jain Studies in the School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. She specialises in Jain theories of knowledge, interpretation and argumentation. She leads the Dharmanath Network, which enhances the societal impact of Jainism and non-violence through engagement between academic, religious, cultural, and political institutions. She is also co-PI of the project “Global Philosophy of Religion: Fundamental Spiritual Reality, Human Purpose, and Living Well” funded by Templeton (2024–27).

Gerhard Heinzmann is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Lorraine at Nancy. Founder of the Research Center Archives Henri–Poincaré, he is the editor of the Publications of the Henri-Poincaré Archives and founder of the journal Philosophia Scientiae. Author of numerous articles and books on the philosophy of mathematics, he is member of the International Academy for Philosophy of Science (Brusssels), the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences and the International Institute of Philosophy.

Lisa Indraccolo is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at Tallinn University and affiliated member of the Zurich Center for the Study of the Ancient World. Her research interests include classical Chinese philosophy; early Chinese rhetoric; structural and rhetorical patterns of ancient Chinese texts; conceptual and intellectual history of premodern China; and early cross-cultural encounters among China, Japan, and Korea. She has published extensively on early Chinese philosophy and rhetoric and premodern Chinese intellectual and conceptual history in major journals in the field; and edited and contributed to several volumes and special journal issues.

Jari Kaukua is Academy Professor in philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä. An expert in Avicenna’s philosophy and its Islamic reception, Kaukua is the author of Suhrawardī’s Illuminationism (Brill, 2022) and the award-winning Self-Awareness in Islamic Philosophy (CUP, 2015), as well as the editor of several anthologies and journal special issues. He has published numerous articles on classical and post-classical Islamic philosophy in central fora of the historiography of philosophy.