Chi ha paura dell'intuizione?

In this paper I try to dispel some ambiguities concerning the notion of intuition and advance a thesis on its necessity. After an introduction (§ 1) in which I briefly talk about the ostracism that intuition has suffered in many areas of modern philosophy, in the first part (sections 2-4) I work toward a closer definition of it. I isolate at least three different meanings of the term relevant for our discussion. In the second part (§ 5) I give an historical reconstruction to show how we pass from a noetic (especially in Plato and Aristotle) to a sensible (esp. in Kant) understanding of intuition. My thesis is simple enough: intuition is not the other of thinking (rationality, philosophy, concepts) but its indispensable complement.