Thread: Are feelings and intuitions a valid source of knowledge?

Ok, good points. And I do concede that you're absolutely right, there are many different definitions of knowledge. I guess you're using the gnostic definition, which I'm not very familiar with. Hmmm.. you know, you could have actually taken a moment to google it and post it here, rather than expect everybody to look it up for themselves!

Let me google that real quick:

Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (in the nominative case γνῶσις f.). In the context of the English language gnosis generally refers to the word's meaning within the spheres of Christian mysticism, Mystery religions and Gnosticism where it signifies a 'spiritual knowledge' or religion of knowledge, in the sense of mystical enlightenment or 'insight'. Gnosis taught a deliverance of man from the constraints of earthly existence through 'insight' into an essential relationship, as soul or spirit, with a supramundane place of freedom.[1]

Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun, which means "knowledge."[2] It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge (eidein), as with the French connaitre compared with savoir, or the German kennen rather than wissen.[3]

So yeah, you definitely mean something very different by knowledge than I do (or is your definition different from Gnosis?) Atheists tend to mean factual understanding that can be demonstrated to be true, whereas Gnosis seems to refer more to what I'd call faith or belief. So I guess we're both right in a sense - you certainly can say that intuition and emotion can provide knowledge in the gnostic sense, but I'm also right in differentiating that from the intellectual knowledge that an atheist would acknowledge as knowledge.

Lol now I've said the word too many times (mostly just in that last sentence!) and it's losing all sense of meaning...