The desire to distinguish two types (methods) of knowledge — mediated by cultural means and direct — appeared already in antiquity. The beginning of this can be found in Plato’s doctrine of ideas, in which there is the concept of non-discursiveness of their comprehension. The Epicureans fixed this phenomenon of direct knowledge or comprehension in the word επιβολή. The terms for designating the two types of knowledge appeared in Philo of Alexandria, and then in Plotinus, who distinguished between επιβολή (direct, instant comprehension (vision, insight)) and διεξοδικός λόγος (consecutive, discursive knowledge, with the help of logical reasoning).
The translation of the concept of επιβολή into Latin by the term “intuitus” (from the verb intueri, meaning “to peer”, “penetrate with a look (vision), “instantly comprehend”) was made in the XNUMXth century by Boethius.
In the 13th century, the German monk Wilhelm of Mörbecke (1215-1286) repeated the translation of Boethius, and the term «intuition» became part of Western European philosophical terminology.
Christian Wolf translated the term «intuitio, intuitus» into German with the word «Anschauung». Wolf also used the expression «anschauende Erkenntnis» — intuitive knowledge. It is in this sense that the term is used by Kant.
The English, French, Italians, Spaniards translate Anschauung with the term «intuition» (French, English — intuition, Italian — intuizione, Spanish — intuicion). The Kantian Anschauung is also translated into Russian by the term “contemplation” to convey the meaning of direct comprehension, non-discursiveness, instantaneous “vision”.