Intuitive-Explicit Conflict
also Conflict between intuition and reason
A disagreement between a person's conscious, articulable arguments and their subconscious intuitions, which CF treats as an unsolved problem rather than a license to override either side.
An intuitive-explicit conflict arises when your conscious, word-based arguments point one way while an intuition (a hunch, gut feeling, or emotion you cannot fully articulate) points the other. CF treats such a clash as a genuine internal conflict: an unsolved problem, not a verdict already reached.
The common “rationalist” error is to assume the explicit side wins by default and to suppress the intuition with willpower. CF rejects this rational suppression. Before any debate has actually resolved the issue, you do not know which side is correct. “That idea is merely an intuition” is no argument against it, because an idea can be both intuitive and true. A critical argument must say why an idea is wrong, not just note its type; otherwise it is compatible with the intuition being right.
So the conflict is diagnostic. If a correct, complete explicit understanding existed, your intuition would change to match it; persistent disagreement signals that the explicit idea is flawed, incomplete, or that some knowledge is still missing. The resolution is investigation, not override: articulate the intuition where you can, or treat it as a black box and probe it with many questions and hypothetical scenarios, gathering data points until you find the pattern behind its reactions.
This also lets two rational people reach different conclusions from identical arguments: one holds an unshared intuitive objection the other lacks. The honest move in debate is to name the conflict (“my intuition disagrees and I can’t yet say why”) and explore it together, rather than concede or fake agreement.