Download - Rethinking Introspection: A Pluralist Approach to the First-Person Perspective

Contents

Series Editors’ Foreword ix Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1

1 Introspection as Inner Perception 6 Historical overview 7 Perceptual models of introspection in psychology 10 Inner perception in contemporary philosophy of mind 12

2 Poking Out the Inner Eye 16 Is there a mind’s eye in the brain? 17 What are the objects of mental perception? 21 Do mental states exhibit perceptual qualia? 28 Perception, evolution, and knowledge of minds 31 Perception and recursion 36 Introspection and attention 37

3 Introspection as a Metaphor 41 The prominence of perceptual metaphor 41 What is introspection? 45 The diversity of introspection 48

4 Knowing Our Own Consciousness 51 Knowing what it is like 52 The inadequacy of standard models

of phenomenal knowledge 55 The existential constitution model

of phenomenal knowledge 62 Objections and clarifications 65 Putting skepticism of self-knowledge in its place 69 Conclusion 73

5 Introspection through Cognition 75 Representation, metarepresentation, and misrepresentation 76 Conceptualizing our own mental states 84 Attention and introspection 90 Introspection and the extended mind 94 Conclusion 97

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6 Understanding Our Own Beliefs and Desires 99 Folk psychology and first-person authority 102 The theory theory challenge to first-person authority 103 Empirical evidence of theory-mediated introspection 106 Mind-monitoring mechanisms and the phenomenology

of propositional attitudes 112 Conclusion 116

7 The Internal Monologue 119 Knowing our own thoughts through language 120 Objections and clarifications 130 Kinds of self-knowledge enabled by inner speech 137 From self-determined truth to self-deception and back 140 Conclusion 147

8 On the Social Side of Self-Knowledge 148 Social self-knowledge 149 Navigating one’s position in social space 151 Direct and indirect testimony about oneself 153 Bias and the rationality of testimonial deference 156 Conclusion 160

Conclusion: Is That All There Is? 161

Notes 165

References 169

Index 177



1

When considering our first-person knowledge of our own minds, whether with regard to immediate awareness of a sensory experience, reflection upon one’s own beliefs or desires, deliberation concerning one’s character, or metaphysical soul-searching about one’s ultimate nature, we commonly appeal to the concept of introspection. But what exactly are we talking about when we speak of introspection? Do we liter-ally perceive our own mental states, as the term seems to suggest, or are there other processes at work in our ability to know our own minds? Can introspection be trusted as a viable or even privileged source of knowl-edge, as many have claimed and many others have simply assumed, or are there significant barriers, problems, and limits regarding what we can know about our own minds from our own first-person perspective? This book offers a pluralistic framework for understanding these issues regarding the nature and epistemic properties of introspection. At the core of this framework is the idea that introspection is a multi-faceted phenomenon that cannot be limited to a single cognitive mechanism or epistemic characterization. There are many different ways in which we engage in introspection and, correspondingly, a variety of different epistemic dimensions involved in our first-person understanding of our own minds. Through presentation and analysis of these various aspects of introspection, I illustrate how we know, and sometimes fail to know, our own minds.

The first step in this reevaluation of introspection is to recognize that the standard and somewhat intuitive understanding of introspection as an inner perceptual faculty is mistaken. People often think of intro-spection literally, as inner perception, but we do not really perceive the contents of our own minds, inside a so-called mind’s eye. As I will argue, this perceptual account of introspection is a result of pervasive

Introduction



2 Rethinking Introspection

and unintentional use of perceptual metaphors in our general under-standing of knowledge. This is not to say that we should stop using the concept of introspection to refer to our first-person knowledge of our own minds, however. Just as we continue to talk of the sun rising and setting while knowing that the rotation of the earth is the actual cause of what we are observing, we can continue to employ the term ‘intro-spection’ to refer to our first-person knowledge of our own minds while recognizing that what we are referring to is actually a heterogeneous collection of different ways of knowing our own minds.

With this clarification regarding the concept of introspection estab-lished, we can ‘see’ the diverse phenomena at work behind our ability to know our own minds from our own first-person perspective. First, there is the experiential knowledge that we have of our own conscious mental states simply in virtue of being ourselves, as conscious beings embodied in the world. This very basic component of self-knowledge, which I characterize as a kind of phenomenal knowledge that is intrinsic to one’s own conscious experience, is the topic of Chapter 4 . Through the development of what I call the existential constitution model of phenomenal knowledge, I argue that this phenomenal knowledge is a unique kind of knowledge that plays a constitutive role in our knowl-edge of our own minds. Next is the higher-level introspective knowl-edge we acquire through our mind’s representational, conceptual, and attention-facilitated abilities, which we routinely use in our engagement with the external world but can also recursively apply to our own mental states. I introduce these cognitive processes as aspects of our introspec-tive capacities in Chapter 5 , defending a somewhat reductionist account of the cognitive processes involved in higher-order introspection. It is a reductionist account in the sense that it explains our introspective abilities through faculties that are already present in human cognitive systems, irrespective of any particular introspective functions they may perform, thereby explaining our high-level capacities to reflect upon our own minds through the more general cognitive capacities of the human mind. In Chapter 6 , I develop this account further by analyzing a somewhat more specific element of this domain: the use of folk psychology, the common-sense understanding of mental states that enables us to conceptualize others as intentional beings with their own beliefs and desires, to understand prominent aspects of ourselves. Drawing upon some important and revealing empirical discoveries, I argue that we often understand ourselves through the application of folk psychological concepts to our own mental states, thereby under-standing ourselves through the same interpretive structures that we use



Introduction 3

to understand the minds of other people. In Chapter 7 , I present and discuss several different ways in which language, through the promi-nent phenomenon of inner speech, contributes to our ability to know our own minds, but also simultaneously allows for epistemic error and even self-deception. In the final chapter, I take a look at the social side of introspection, considering how our introspective knowledge extends into the social processes that surround our lives. Taken together, these various faculties and processes provide a viable framework for under-standing introspection.

Throughout my discussion of these rather diverse aspects of intro-spection, one key goal is to map out the epistemic dimensions of our capacity to know, and fail to know, our own minds from our first-person perspective. Corresponding to the fundamentally different kinds of introspective processes outlined above, there are distinctly different epistemic characterizations of the nature and extent of our knowledge of our own minds. As I will argue, some introspective faculties provide unique ways of knowing our own minds that do not fit standard models of knowledge and are not subject to typical epistemic error, such as the experiential self-knowledge intrinsic to being in a conscious state and the self-determining truth values of some types of inner speech utterances (such as thinking the thought ‘I am thinking’ to oneself). However, many other kinds of introspection are subject to the possi-bility of epistemic error, such as the capacity to misrepresent anything that is mediated through representational concepts and the capacity to deceive ourselves through the narratives we construct with inner speech commentary upon ourselves and our experiences. The consideration of these various traits illustrates how introspection includes a rather broad range of epistemic properties that cannot be neatly contained within a one-dimensional characterization of the epistemology of introspection.

By drawing attention to this broad epistemic range of introspection, I hope to clarify the needless and misguided debate concerning whether introspection is special and privileged or fallible and untrustworthy. Can we trust introspection? This question simply cannot be answered with a singular yes or no. Instead, introspection, as a diverse phenom-enon, is spread out across numerous characteristics, some of which are trustworthy and some of which are not. Realization of this fact is long overdue in the various disciplines investigating the human mind, where perspectives on introspection have been polarized by one-dimensional characterizations, from the categorically dismissive attitude that has been prominent in mainstream psychology since the decline and




rejection of the early ‘introspectionists’ to those in philosophy who regard introspection as a privileged, authoritative, and/or foundational source of knowledge. Introspection cannot be accurately squeezed into either of these characterizations, and is best regarded as a multi-faceted phenomenon with both privileged and fallible epistemic elements.

In addition to offering a pluralist account of introspection, this book is methodologically pluralistic. I will follow a naturalistic but meth-odologically diverse explanatory approach, drawing upon a variety of fields of study for both conceptual development and supporting evidence. This book is first and foremost a work in philosophy, but it also integrates ideas and observations from relevant sciences, including cognitive, social, and evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, linguis-tics, and sociology. Even within the domain of philosophy, it will be methodologically diverse and integrative. Much of what I will address stems from, and critically engages with, work in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, but I will also utilize and engage in varying degrees with phenomenology, existentialism, pragmatism, and ordinary language philosophy, insofar as they present relevant considerations for understanding the phenomena involved in introspection. I do not draw any principled exclusionary lines in the sand between theoretical orientations, contrary to the common tendency to divide philosophy into warring camps pitted against one another. Instead, I prefer to draw upon multiple theoretical backgrounds, pragmatically determined by whatever considerations are needed to pursue truth, understanding, and clarification regarding the topic at hand.

It is worth noting that this work is not unique in following a pluralist methodology. For example, some philosophers concerned with under-standing the mind have advocated a triangulated approach, such that experiential phenomenology, explanatory theory, and empirical obser-vation are all each given their due in approaching a sufficient under-standing of the mind (e.g., Flanagan, 1992 ; Gallagher, 2008 ). I agree that all three of these factors must be taken together if we are to progress in our understanding of the mind, and likewise follow a similar pluralist approach in this book.

Not all accounts and perspectives are equally plausible, however. It is important to note that pluralism does not entail that all methods, accounts, and/or explanations are to be accepted. Indeed, as we will see in the first two chapters of this book, some accounts do not hold up to sustained pluralistic inquiry, even though they may pass muster from one particular perspective or other. In approaching truth and avoiding falsity, our claims about the mind ought to be held accountable to all



Introduction 5

applicable standards together, including empirical evidence, logical consistency, theoretical viability, phenomenological accuracy, and plain ole common-sense plausibility, none of which is sacrosanct alone, and some of which can trump others with enough support. Through the use of multiple explanatory methods and theories held to these stand-ards, the hope is that we can weed through false claims and misguided conceptions, approaching an accurate and well-rounded understanding of our introspective capacities.

Before we get started, however, I ought to emphasize one more thing about the approach I will take in this book. There is a growing consensus, across disciplinary and theoretical boundaries, towards a naturalistic understanding of the human mind and this book follows suit with this as well. Through multiple well-known developments (e.g., evolu-tionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, human ecology), it has become quite clear that we are natural beings, biologically embedded in the physical world. We are not transcendent disembodied egos, what philosopher Gilbert Ryle aptly and derogatorily labeled Cartesian ‘ghosts in the machine’, that somehow mysteriously and only contingently inhabit our bodies ( 1949 ). Instead, we are our bodies, thoroughly phys-ical and inextricably situated within the natural world. I will assume this naturalized perspective in this book. The primary aim, however, is not to defend this naturalized perspective, at least not directly. Instead, what I offer here is a way of thinking about introspection that is both compatible with and developed from a broadly naturalistic and embodied approach to the mind. Readers who do not follow this natu-ralistic approach may still find something worthwhile in the book, however, insofar as they may be interested in understanding the nature of introspection and self-knowledge regardless of the broader nature of the mind. I will regularly and unapologetically write from a naturalistic perspective, but not everything I say is dependent upon that perspec-tive being true. If my overall account is right, however, some cherished anti-naturalistic ideas may be brought into serious doubt, including especially the notion that we are transcendent immaterial observers, perched in a privileged position to perceive the contents of our own minds. Despite much progress in overturning the picture of ourselves as disembodied observers that we inherited from Descartes and others, the idea of a perceiving ego within the head persists in much thought about the mind today, sometimes in quasi-naturalized form. As we will see over the next few chapters, this misguided notion must be pulled out by the roots, clearing the way for a more accurate understanding of how we know (and fail to know) our own minds.



6

Literally speaking, the term ‘introspection’ means to look within. The concept of introspection thereby suggests an ability to perceive within oneself. If we regard introspection in this literal manner, we are led to posit a perceptual faculty in the mind through which we observe our own mental states. Just as we perceive the external world through specific perceptual mechanisms, such as eyes, ears, and skin, we might perceive internal events through some similar sort of mechanism or process that is specially aimed toward the perception of mental states. A number of people, both past and present, have regarded introspection along these lines. Moreover, ordinary talk of a ‘mind’s eye’ or ‘looking within’ oneself likewise suggests some kind of perceptual process regarding introspection. However, as I will argue later, there are good reasons for thinking that this view of introspection is mistaken as a literal account of what goes on in our minds when we come to know our own mental states. Dismissing this common view of introspection will open the concept of introspection to a broader range of under-standing and analysis. It will allow us to conceive of introspection not as a singular mechanism or process, but rather as a metaphor for our diverse and heterogeneous capacities to obtain knowledge of our own minds.

Before explaining why we should dismiss the perceptual account of introspection, however, I will first survey how common and prominent this viewpoint has been and, to a large extent, continues to be, through an overview of perspectives that express, defend, or tacitly assume some version or other of the perceptual account of introspection. My purpose here is not to give a comprehensive survey or analysis of these view-points, but rather to illustrate the commonality of the perceptual model as it appears both throughout history and in contemporary thought.

1 Introspection as Inner Perception



Introspection as Inner Perception 7

Readers already familiar with perceptual accounts of introspection in philosophy and science may wish to skip ahead to the next chapter, though the material here will clarify the target of the criticisms I will make there.

Historical overview

First of all, many historically significant and influential philosophers either assumed or endorsed a perceptual account of introspection. Although some earlier figures might be noted here, such as Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas (Lyons, 1986 , pp. 1–2; Wallace, 2000 , p. 76), let us begin with the father of modern philosophy, Ren é Descartes, at the dawn of what William Lyons dubbed ‘the golden age of introspec-tion’ ( 1986 , p. 2ff). As you may know, Descartes sought an indubitable foundation for knowledge through first-person reflection. At the core of this pursuit was his reliance upon his introspective knowledge of his own mind. Through ‘clear and distinct’ (seemingly) observation of the contents of his own mind, Descartes constructed his epistemic and metaphysical framework for philosophy. Consider, for example, his (in)famous observation of himself as an immaterial soul:

Then I looked carefully into what I was. I saw that while I could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world and no place for me to be in, I still couldn’t pretend that I didn’t exist. I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact that I thought about doubting the truth of other things, it followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed; ... This taught me that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is simply to think [here = ‘to be in conscious mental states’], and which doesn’t need any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly this me – this soul that makes me what I am – is entirely distinct from the body, is easier to know than the body, and would still be just what it is even if the body didn’t exist (Descartes, 1637 , Part IV).

There is much to say about this passage and the reasoning behind it, which arguably set the study of the mind on a misguided course from which we are still recovering today (see, e.g., Wheeler, 2005 ; Rowlands, 2010 ), but for our immediate purposes the thing to note is the emphasis on inner observation. The use of the words ‘looked’ and ‘saw’ is particu-larly revealing here; Descartes thought he could clearly and distinctly perceive his own nature as a conscious being, apart from his fallible




sensory-mediated perceptions of the outer world, including his own body. In this respect, Descartes conceived of introspection as a kind of inner perception, albeit a very special and epistemically privileged perception that is quite distinct from ordinary sensory perception. To be precise, the elevated epistemic status of inner observation sets Descartes’ particular brand of introspection apart from other perceptual accounts of introspection, many of which regard introspection as fallible and epistemically on par with external perception. In fact, for this reason, some distinguish Cartesian introspection from perceptual accounts of introspection (e.g., Gertler, 2011 ), but his repeated emphasis on inner observation, irrespective of its epistemic standing, clearly places him in the perceptual account camp, broadly construed.

Moving along in history, the conception of introspection as a kind of perception is more explicitly articulated by the classical empiricist John Locke. After discussing the perception of sensible objects via ideas present in the mind, Locke goes on to say:

Secondly, The other Fountain, from which Experience furnisheth the Understanding with Ideas , is the Perception of the Operations of our own Minds within us, as it is employ’d about the Ideas it has got; which Operations, when the Soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the Understanding with another set of Ideas , which could not be had from things without: and such are, Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own Minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our Understandings, as distinct Ideas , as we do from Bodies affecting our Senses. This Source of Ideas , every Man has wholly in himself: And though it be not Sense, as having nothing to do with external Objects; yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be call’d internal Sense. But as I call the other Sensation , so I call this REFLECTION , the Ideas it affords being such only, as the Mind gets by reflecting on its own Operations within it self. (Locke, 1689 /1975, Book II, Chapter I , Section 4, p. 105).

So, according to Locke, we perceive the inner workings of our minds through a kind of observational faculty, which he calls ‘reflection’. Although he distinguishes this faculty from ‘sensation’, reserving the latter term for our perceptual access to the external world, Locke regards this internal operation of the mind as similar enough to ordinary sense perception to warrant the characterization of it as an ‘internal Sense’. He speaks of introspective reflection as observing the operations of the




mind, perceiving them in much the same way that we perceive external objects. The epistemic status of Lockean inner sense is thereby quite different from Cartesian introspection, but both share the idea that we conscious beings have a first-person mode of observation toward our own minds.

A similar inner sense account of introspection is found in the work of Immanuel Kant, who inherited and transformed many of the ideas of the modern period, both rationalist and empiricist. In the Critique of Pure Reason , Kant speaks repeatedly of ‘inner sense’ as a faculty by which we perceive mental phenomena. For instance, in regard to our knowledge of both internal and external objects, Kant states that

The relation of sensibility to an object and what the transcendental ground of this [objective] unity may be, are matters undoubtedly so deeply concealed that we, who after all know even ourselves only through inner sense and therefore as appearance, can never be justified in treating sensibility as being a suitable instrument of investigation for discovering anything save always still other appear-ances ... (Kant, 1781 /1929, A278/B334, p. 287)

The basic idea here is that sensory objects can only be known as appear-ances (rather than as they are ‘in themselves’), and that this applies not only to external objects but also to internal mental objects as well, including the self. So, just as we come to know of tables, chairs, trees, and people through the appearances they produce in our senses, we likewise come to know of our own mental lives by their appearing to us through some kind of inner sensory modality. While there may be some difficulties in translating Kant’s own rather idiosyncratic terminology over to our now common talk of introspection, the similarities are clear enough to show that Kant, like many philosophers and theorists before and after him, thought that we obtain knowledge of our own minds in some kind of perceptual manner, whatever the specific mechanism of this inner sense may be.

Moving along toward the twentieth century, William James is another notable philosopher (and psychologist) who characterizes introspec-tion as a kind of perception. In describing his general methodology for psychology, James famously states that:

Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always. The word introspection need hardly be defined – it means, of course, the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there




discover. Every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness. (James, 1890 , vol. 1, chapter VII )

This is the most direct and confident commitment to the perceptual model of introspection we have seen thus far, perhaps illustrating the solidification of this perspective in the investigation of the mind over time. James asserts that it is so obvious that introspection is a kind of mental perception that it need not even be explained, and regards this obviousness as so fundamental that it provides his foundation for empirical psychological research.

James exhibits a very common intuition here, one that can be traced back to Descartes (if not earlier) and persists to this day, simply taking it for granted that we somehow literally observe the contents of our own minds. I will later argue that this view of introspection is not nearly as obvious as it seems if we attend closely to the phenomenology of first-person experi-ence, and that what we have here is not a literal understanding of intro-spection but rather the persistent application of perceptual metaphor to non-perceptual cognitive processes. For the time being, however, the point to notice is how obvious and basic it seems to James that introspec-tion is a kind of perception. To James, and to many others before and after him, it is simply given that we observe our own conscious mental states through a perceptual faculty called introspection.

Perceptual models of introspection in Psychology

The characterization of introspection as a kind of perception was put to practical use by a group of early psychologists that is now referred to, often in a somewhat pejorative manner, as the ‘introspectionists’ (Boring, 1953 ; Danziger, 1980 ; Lyons, 1986 ; Schwitzgebel, 2004 ). Most notably, this includes the work of Wilhelm Wundt and E. B. Titchener. Like James, these introspectionists took introspection, as the inward perception of mental states, to be a foundational method for psycho-logical research. Unlike James, however, they tried to narrow and sharpen the focus of introspection like a scientific instrument, so that it could operate more precisely than it does in everyday life. By training experimental subjects to isolate their introspective observations, the introspectionists sought to uncover the basic constituents of experi-ence, much as chemists empirically investigated the basic constitu-ents of physical substances in the construction of the periodic table. However, as those familiar with the history of psychology will know,




different introspection-based research projects came up with different, and even opposed, results. 1 Such conflict paved the way for other foun-dational psychologists to dismiss the use of introspection, and the very different behaviorist approach came to prominence as a foundation for the relatively newborn science of psychology. Even though behaviorism has also since gone by the wayside (for the most part), its rejection of ‘introspectionism’ as a psychological approach still has an impact on psychological research, with almost univocal prominence being given to third-person observation and analysis in mainstream psycholog-ical methodologies, at least as they are often officially advertised and described, tacit reliance on verbal reports notwithstanding.

Nevertheless, the characterization of introspection as a kind of perception has continued in psychology. For instance, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, in a book titled The Inner Eye , gives a central role to inner perception in his account of social intelligence (1986). To name another influential example, Ulric Neisser speaks of self-perception in his descriptions of ecological and interpersonal self-knowledge (1993), though he fails to distinguish between the importantly different notions that self-knowledge can be gained through a process of self-perception and that one can gain self-knowledge through ordinary sensory percep-tion (the latter being both quite plausible, and entirely compatible with a rejection of inner perception, as we will see). It is worth noting here that conceiving of introspection as inner perception and rejecting inner perception as a psychological method is not necessarily inconsistent. In particular, it is possible to hold that introspection is a kind of perception without thinking that such perception should be the basis for psycho-logical research. Perhaps, for instance, it is a particularly inaccurate or biased kind of perception and therefore cannot be a trustworthy source of information. In fact, such a view of introspection can be found in recent work in psychology, with use of the term ‘self-perception’ to char-acterize fallible and biased first-person perception of one’s own mental states (See Silvia and Gendolla, 2001 , for instance). This term often occurs with little or no conception or elaboration regarding what this ‘self-perception’ is supposed to be, in terms of actual, concrete proc-esses. Rather, it seems to be simply assumed, just as we saw above with William James and others, that people access their own psychological states in a perceptual manner. Despite the demise of introspectionism in psychology, the view that humans understand themselves through some kind of internal mental perception persists in contemporary psychology.




Inner perception in contemporary philosophy of mind

I will now turn to some prominent contemporary philosophers who explicitly articulate and defend the claim that introspection is a kind of perception. First up is David Armstrong and his influential characteri-zation of introspective consciousness as inner perception. In explaining his account of introspective consciousness, Armstrong utilizes the example of a long-distance truck driver. He states that ‘After driving for long periods of time, particularly at night, it is possible to “come to” and realize that for some time past one has been driving without being aware of what one has been doing’. (1997, p. 723). The idea is that such a person, prior to ‘coming to’, is lacking introspective consciousness. The driver is perceptually aware of the environment, at least insofar as such awareness is required for driving, but not self-reflectively aware of her awareness itself. For Armstrong, this lack of awareness is a lack of perceiving one’s own mental states. In illustration of this, he states

What is it that the long-distance truck driver lacks? I think it is an additional form of perception, or, a little more cautiously, it is some-thing that resembles perception. But unlike sense -perception, it is not directed toward our current environment and/or our current bodily state. It is perception of the mental. Such ‘inner’ perception is tradi-tionally called introspection, or introspective awareness. (1997, p. 724)

Like Locke, Armstrong distinguishes between ordinary sensory percep-tion and introspection while still regarding them as similar enough to classify introspection as a kind of ‘inner’ perception. Although he hints at some caution on this point, it is clear that Armstrong adopts a percep-tual account of introspection. In fact, he directly affirms the Kantian viewpoint we looked at earlier:

I believe that Kant suggested the correct way of thinking about intro-spection when he spoke of our awareness of our own mental states as the operation of ‘inner sense’. He took sense-perception as the model for introspection. By sense-perception we become aware of current phys-ical happenings in our environment and our body. By inner sense we become aware of current happenings in our own mind. (1968, p. 95)

So, like Kant and others, Armstrong thinks that we come to know our own mental states by perceiving them in a sensory or sensory-like manner, just as we come to know about external objects through our




various senses. However, unlike the other philosophers we have looked at so far, but like most philosophers today, Armstrong is a materialist and devotes much of his work to understanding the mind in terms of physical processes. Following this general orientation towards the mental, Armstrong suggests that introspection, as a physical process, occurs through a self-scanning process in the brain: ‘ ... it will be a process in which one part of the brain scans another part of the brain. In perception the brain scans the environment. In awareness of the perception another process in the brain scans that scanning’. (1968, p. 94). Through this materialist viewpoint on the inner perception model of introspection, Armstrong characterizes introspection as a contin-gent, fallible process manifested in the complex machinery of the brain. Just as our eyes can make mistakes in perceiving the world around us, through various physical ailments and other sources of error, so too can our brain scanner make mistakes when perceiving our own mental states. From Armstrong’s perspective, it seems that the only substan-tial conceptual difference between introspection and ordinary sense perception is in terms of what they are directed towards. One is directed inward, while the others are directed outward, but otherwise they are of the same sort of physical process with parallel epistemic status, involving the fallible perception of objects through specific mecha-nisms contingently manifested in the human mind.

The contemporary philosopher Paul Churchland holds a similar view of introspection, also connected to his account of consciousness in general (1984; 1985). He states that

... self-consciousness, on this view, is just a species of perception: self-perception . It is not perception of one’s foot with one’s eyes, for example, but is rather the perception of one’s internal states with what we may call (largely in ignorance) one’s faculty of introspec-tion. Self-consciousness is thus no more (and no less) mysterious than perception generally. It is just directed internally rather than externally. (1985, p. 74)

Like Armstrong, Churchland is a brain-centric materialist, and so at first pass it may not seem surprising that he identifies introspection as a perceptual faculty in the brain. However, Churchland is a materialist of a specific sort: an eliminative materialist. He seeks not only to explain, but to replace, the mental in terms of the physical processes imple-mented in the brain. In other words, rather than attempting to show how our ordinary psychological concepts (e.g., beliefs, experiences)




can be understood in terms of physical processes, Churchland suggests that we do away with our ordinary folk psychology altogether, ulti-mately replacing it with empirically-grounded neuroscience (1981). Considering this, I find it rather odd that he uncritically follows the common conception of introspection as a kind of perception, espe-cially when he acknowledges, as seen in the quote above, that we are generally ignorant of what particular neural processes constitute this perceptual faculty. As I will elaborate upon later, I think that this igno-rance is grounds for skepticism regarding the inner perception model. Yet, remarkably, Churchland does not even seem to consider this possi-bility, thereby falling prey to the folk psychological characterizations of the mental that he seeks to eliminate. Perhaps like James, he simply assumes it to be obvious that introspection is perceptual in nature. Whatever the case may be, however, the fact that an otherwise radical philosopher like Churchland uncritically accepts the inner perception model gives further testament to the commonality and prominence of this account.

Another noteworthy contemporary philosopher who explic-itly endorses the perceptual view of introspection is William Lycan. Following Locke, Kant, and Armstrong, Lycan argues that we have the ability to perceive internal states through some kind of monitoring process. Echoing Armstrong, he states that:

... to be actively-introspectively aware that P is for one to have an internal scanner in working order that is operating on some state that is itself psychological and delivering information about that state to one’s executive control unit. (1987, p. 72)

Lycan further claims that this introspective ability accounts for the nature of consciousness, stating that ‘consciousness is a perception-like second-order representing of our own psychological states and events’. (1996, p. 13). However, for our purposes, we can set that additional claim aside and focus on the prior idea that we have such a perception-like capacity in the first place. In this regard, Lycan is yet another advocate of the perceptual account of introspection.

So, as we can now see, the idea that introspection is a kind of percep-tion extends throughout the history of modern philosophy, into the origins of psychology, and up to present-day philosophy of mind. It is remarkably, even insidiously, common. Thus far, all of the examples we have considered came from thinkers in the Western cultural tradition. Yet, the idea that we can perceive our own mental states can be found




in non-Western systems of thought as well. For example, Buddhism contains the idea that we have a ‘sixth sense’ through which we inter-nally observe the workings of our minds (deCharms, 1998 , p. 66). This idea is often mentioned in a practical context, in describing medita-tion practices that involve observing mental events. For example, in explaining Tantric Yoga practice, it is stated that ‘The primary concern of these teachings is inward contemplation and introspection to directly perceive, in the atmosphere of meditative settledness, the functioning of the mind’. (Powers, 1995 , p. 244; see also Thera, 1962 ). The fact that the perceptual account of introspection can be found in this very different context provides yet further indication of its prominence. The idea of ‘looking within’ ourselves through the ‘mind’s eye’ is a remark-ably common, typical, and perhaps even near-universal way of under-standing the human capacity for introspection. Yet, as I will argue in the next chapter, it is fundamentally mistaken.



177

Index

agency, 103, 132, 142appeal to ignorance, 20Armstrong, D., 12–13, 14, 18–19, 27attention, 2, 24, 26, 34–5, 37–40, 48,

75, 76, 90–4, 96, 98, 147, 162beliefs, 1, 2, 23–6, 27, 29–30, 33, 34,

49, 66–7, 71, 73, 74, 81, 82, 87, 99–118, 140–1, 146, 147, 148, 151, 156, 159, 160, 163, 164

understanding false, 34, 110–11see also folk psychology; theory of

mind

Bermúdez, J. L., 44, 68–9, 81Better-Than-Average (Lake Wobegon)

effect, 156–7Bigelow, J.C., 58blindsight, 57brains, 13, 17–20, 22–3, 27, 32,

37, 38, 39, 54, 57, 79, 81, 91, 92, 105, 107–9, 114, 132, 134, 136, 138–9

attention processes in, 38, 39

Carruthers, P., 33, 105, 123–6, 128, 129, 131, 132

Chalmers, D., 29, 58, 76, 95Churchland, P., 13–14, 27, 80, 99Clark, A., 64, 76, 95, 97, 129–30cognition, 29, 42–3, 46, 48, 64,

75–98, 120, 129, 136, 162, 1634EA (embodied, embedded,

extended, enactive, and affective), 38, 64; see also embodiment; emotions; extended mind/cognition

social, 32–4, 100–1, 148–60concepts, 2–3, 13, 26, 42, 43, 60, 61,

72, 73, 77, 82, 84–90, 99, 104–5, 122, 150, 162, 163

folk psychological, 99–118plurality/diversity of, 75

and theories, 87–9Conee, E., 58confabulation, 108, 110, 143, 145–6,

164consciousness, 12–14, 27, 32, 37, 38–9,

40, 45, 51–74, 77, 91, 92–3, 115, 150, 163

and language, 120–9, 147Csikszentmihalyi, M., 34–5

deference to others, 148–9, 156–60

Dennett, D., 38, 126–9, 146Descartes, R./Cartesianism, 5, 7–8, 9,

10, 22, 38–9, 49, 69, 99, 102, 117, 141, 148

developmental psychology, 34, 107, 110–11

Dretske, F., 76–80, 82–3, 85

embodiment, 2, 5, 17, 19, 38, 42–3, 48, 51, 53, 60, 62–5, 66, 68–9, 72, 77, 78, 80, 81, 95, 101, 118, 126, 137, 138–9, 141, 142, 143, 161, 163

emotions, 23–5, 26, 28, 30, 43, 44, 54, 61, 62, 70, 74, 84, 87, 90, 94, 124, 131, 137, 152, 159, 162

epistemology, 3, 51, 52, 56, 72, 94, 117, 142, 145, 156

see knowledge; introspectionEricsson, K. A., 144evolution, 4, 5, 16, 31–6, 97, 105,

126–7existential constitution model of

phenomenal knowledge, 2, 52, 55, 56, 62–5, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 80

explanation, unifying, 17, 41, 48extended mind/cognition, 38, 64, 76,

94–8, 129–30



178 Index

Falvey, K., 102–3first-person authority, 100,

102–12, 141Flanagan, O., 4, 97Fodor, J., 77, 86, 99, 131, 137folk psychology, 2, 14, 45, 76,

88–9, 99–118, 119–20, 140, 142, 149, 158

simulation theory of, 100–1, 114theory theory of, 101, 103–16see also theory of mind

Frege, G., 121–3, 131Fricker, E., 158–9functionalism/functionality/

functional explanation/functional roles, 16, 18, 19, 24–5, 31–2, 39, 55, 79–80, 86, 97, 114, 127

Gallagher, S., 4, 52, 64, 100–1, 102

Gazzaniga, M., 107–8Gergen, K., 150–1Gibson, J.J., 68, 155Goldman, A., 114–16Gopnik, A., 34, 88, 105, 110–11Güzeldere, G., 27

Heidegger, M., 64Heil, J., 135–6Hofstadter, D., 44homunculus problem, 38–9Hume, D., 87Humphrey, N., 11, 32–3, 34Husserl, E., 21, 25, 64Hutto, D., 106, 118, 140

inner speech, 3, 49, 118, 119–47, 163, 164

intentionality, 135–6introspection

cognitively enabled/mediated, 75–98; see also folk psychology enabled/mediated; language enabled/mediated under introspection

defined, 46difficulty of, 34–5

diversity/heterogeneity/pluralist conception of, 1, 2, 3–4, 6, 40, 41, 47–50, 67–8, 70, 83, 91, 137–40, 149, 151, 161, 164

fallibility of, 3–4, 8, 11, 13, 49, 60, 69–73, 84, 96, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106–12, 116–18, 131–2, 133, 142–7, 156–60, 163

first-person nature of, 1, 2, 3, 17, 23, 41, 46–7, 48, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71–2, 90, 92, 113, 137, 148, 150–1, 152, 156, 160, 161, 164

folk psychology enabled/mediated, 99–118

infallibility of, 63–4, 141, 162intrinsic to phenomenal

consciousness, 51–74language enabled/mediated, 96–7,

118, 119–47as a metaphor, 2, 6, 10, 17, 40–50,

91, 161non-perceptual nature of, 16–40perceptual accounts of, 6–15recursive capacity of, 2, 16, 36–7,

82, 94, 99, 118, 126–9, 137, 140, 147, 161, 163

scepticism of, 69–73introspectionism in psychology,

10–11Ismael, J. T., 152

Jackendoff, R., 127–9Jackson, F., 52, 54–5, 56, 59, 60James, W., 9–10, 11, 14, 40, 86, 91Johnson, M., 42–4, 46

Kafka, F., 16Kant, I., 9, 12, 14, 40Katha Upanishad, 16knowledge

ability, 55, 57, 58, 59, 62, 64acquaintance, 55, 57–61, 63, 64conceived through perceptual

metaphors, 42–4indexical, 152–3kinds of, 51, 55–61, 66phenomenal, 2, 48, 51–74, 78, 92,

116, 137–9, 147



Index 179

propositional, 55–64, 71, 142, 147; see also introspection, language enabled/mediated

testimonial, 148, 153–60, 164 Kornblith, H., 69–73

Lakoff, G., 42–4, 46Locke, J., 8–9, 12, 14, 27, 40Lycan, W., 14, 27, 37–40Lyons, W., 7, 10, 22, 45, 76,

105–6

Machery, E., 133–5Maiese, M., 64–5materialism, 13, 19, 38–9

eliminative, 13–14, 45–6Mead, G. H., 149–51meditation, 15, 35, 93Meltzoff, A., 34, 88, 105memory, 36, 57, 75, 76, 96, 109,

111, 143Menary, R., 38, 64, 75, 76, 95–6mental states

as objects of conceptual representation, 26–7, 61, 81–8

as objects of perception, 23–7knowledge of others’, 33–4, 103,

107, 157Merleau-Ponty, M., 21, 64, 122–3,

131, 138metaphysics, of consciousness, 51–2,

54–5, 59–60metarepresentation, 76, 81–4, 85,

87, 93misrepresentation, 76, 84, 111, 142Musgrave, A., 104–5

Nagel, T., 52–5, 59, 60, 68, 70, 79narrative processes/practices, 3,

49, 106, 117–18, 140, 141, 145, 146

naturalism, 4–5, 17, 19, 60, 136Neisser, U., 11Nichols, S., 112–14Nisbett, R., 72, 109–10, 142–3Noë, A., 21, 64

observation, theory-laden, 104–5

Pargetter, R., 58perception, 1, 6–40, 68–9, 82, 92,

129, 134–5, 155displaced, 83–4introspection as a kind of, 6–15,

45, 87, 92, 138–9, 161metaphorical concepts of,

41–4, 48objects of, 21–7 and perceptual constancy, 23–4

phenomenal properties, 21, 28–31, 51–74, 78–80, 114–16, 119, 134, 150

phenomenology, 4, 10, 16, 21–31, 36, 64, 112, 114–16, 122–3, 126, 134, 138–9

Plato/Platonism, 86, 121, 122pluralism, methodological, 1, 4–5

see also introspection, diversity/heterogeneity/pluralist conception of; cognition, plurality/diversity of

proprioception/bodily perception, 18, 68–9, 80–1

propositional attitudes, see folk psychology; knowledge, propositional

qualia, see phenomenal properties

Ratcliffe, M., 100–1, 148representations and representational

abilities/properties, 2, 3, 23, 33, 39, 76–87, 90, 93, 94, 96, 98, 111, 112, 120, 122, 134, 139, 140, 142, 143, 152, 155, 157, 162, 163

Russell, B., 60Ryle, G., 5, 38

Sartre, J. P., 64Searle, J., 25–6self

concepts/representations of, 69, 82, 89

as subject of experience, 25–6

self-deception, 3, 140, 145–7, 164self-perception in psychology, 11



180 Index

Simon, H., 144social network analysis,

152, 157Sperry, R., 107split-brain epileptics, 107–9Stich, S., 112–14

theory of mind, 33, 87–9, 99–118

evolutionary role of, 33–4see also folk psychology

Thompson, E., 52, 148

transparency of experience/mental states, 30, 94, 99, 103, 107, 111, 117, 133

Tye, M., 59

verbal overshadowing, 143–4

Wallace, B. A., 7, 19–20Wheeler, M., 7, 38, 64Wilson, T., 72, 109–10, 142–3

Zahavi, D., 25, 52, 64

