Word.ws English Dictionary

intuition pump

intuition pump noun: a type of thought experiment that leads to a specific conclusion through intuition.

Noun

intuition pump (plural intuition pumps)

  1. A type of thought experiment that leads to a specific conclusion through intuition.
    • Intuition pumps, however, can lead us astray. Sometimes what is in fact no more than an intuition pump may appear to us as an argument.2011, Julian Baggini, Peter S. Fosl, The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods, second edition, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 59

Forms of intuition pump

pluralintuition pumps

Origin of intuition pump

Coined by American philosopher Daniel Dennett.

Questions about intuition pump

What does intuition pump mean?
Intuition pump means a type of thought experiment that leads to a specific conclusion through intuition.
What part of speech is intuition pump?
Intuition pump is a noun.
What is the plural of intuition pump?
The plural of intuition pump is intuition pumps.

Words near intuition pump in the dictionary

  1. intuiter
  2. intuiters
  3. intuiting
  4. intuitings
  5. intuition
  6. intuition pump
  7. intuition pumps
  8. intuitional
  9. intuitionalism
  10. intuitionalist
  11. intuitionalists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intuition pump (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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