\\Server03\productn\T\THE\21-2\THE202.txt unknown Seq: 1 21-NOV-01 12:35 ARTICLES Direct Apprehension and Social Construction: Revisiting the Concept of Intuition † Lisa M. Osbeck State University of West Georgia Abstract An appeal to intuition as immediate or direct apprehen- sion has been centrally important throughout the history of philosophy. Although largely ignored by scientific psy- chology until recently, references to intuition now appear across an array of research contexts. The concept has not, however, filtered into theoretical psychology in any con- sistent way. This may have much to do with a widespread tendency to construe intuition as a rationalist concept, strictly bound to notions of truth, necessity, and essence. This paper reviews the role of intuition or an analogous concept within several divergent philosophical systems (including those in which claims concerning the certainty of what is intuited are not relevant) and argues that the salient feature common to various accounts of intuition is its non-inferential status. As such, it is argued to be highly relevant to contemporary theory. The paper offers several examples of points of compatibility with contem- porary theory, including perception of social affordances, the apprehension linguistic rules and the construction of social norms. In claiming specific ways in which the con- cept of intuition is relevant to contemporary theoretical psychology, the paper moves toward developing a more comprehensive and historically informed framework for intuition than is currently offered. It also underscores the historical underpinnings of contemporary debates. † A version of this paper was presented at the International Society for Theoretical Psychology, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 2001. Also, the original research on intuition was conducted as part of a dissertation in partial completion of a PhD at Georgetown University.