You know, when Kahneman says “Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition,” he’s cutting through all the mystical nonsense. He’s telling us that our gut feelings aren’t magic. They’re just our brain’s incredibly fast way of spotting patterns it’s seen before. It’s a powerful, practical insight that changes how you see decision-making.
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Meaning
At its core, this quote strips intuition of its supernatural aura. It means that what we call a “gut feeling” is simply our mind recognizing a situation based on past experience, not some sixth sense.
Explanation
Okay, let me break this down. For years, I used to think my best ideas or sudden insights were just… lucky guesses. But Kahneman’s framework shows it’s not luck. It’s your brain’s System 1 – the fast, automatic processor – doing a lightning-quick database search. It’s seen a version of this problem before, maybe in a different form, and it’s presenting you with the answer without showing you the messy work it did in the background. It’s not a crystal ball. It’s a highly efficient, pattern-matching machine. That’s the recognition.
Quote Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Category | Skill (416) |
| Topics | experience (26), intuition (17) |
| Literary Style | concise (408) |
| Overall Quote Score | 79 (243) |
Origin & Factcheck
This insight comes straight from Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 magnum opus, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” It was published in the United States and distills decades of his research with Amos Tversky. You sometimes see this idea misattributed to other behavioral economists or psychologists, but the specific phrasing and the powerful simplification are pure Kahneman.
Attribution Summary
| Context | Attributes |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniel Kahneman (54) |
| Source Type | Book (4032) |
| Source/Book Name | Thinking, Fast and Slow (54) |
| Origin Timeperiod | 21st Century (1892) |
| Original Language | English (3668) |
| Authenticity | Verified (4032) |
Author Bio
Dr Daniel Kahneman transformed how we think about thinking. Trained in Israel and at UC Berkeley, he built a career spanning Hebrew University, UBC, UC Berkeley, and Princeton. His partnership with Amos Tversky produced prospect theory and the heuristics-and-biases program, culminating in the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He engaged broad audiences through bestselling books and practical frameworks for better decisions. He continued writing and advising late into life, leaving ideas that shape economics, policy, medicine, and management. If you want to dive deeper, start with the Dr Daniel Kahneman book list and explore his enduring insights.
| Official Website
Where is this quotation located?
| Quotation | Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition |
| Book Details | Publication Year: 2011; ISBN: 9780374275631; Latest Edition: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013; Number of pages: 499. |
| Where is it? | Part I: Two Systems, Chapter 5: Cognitive Ease, Approximate page 67 (2013 edition) |