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Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness andintrospection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry (...) between a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)

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Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to modelintrospection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception tointrospection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise (...) ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modellingintrospection after perception, iSDT can calibrateintrospection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking aboutintrospection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

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‘Introspection’ is a term used by philosophers to refer to a special method or means by which one comes to know certain of one's own mental states; specifically, one's current conscious states. It derives from the Latin ‘spicere’, meaning ‘look’, and ‘intra’, meaning ‘within’;introspection is a process of looking inward. Introspectionist accounts of self-knowledge fall within the broader domain of theories of self-knowledge, understood as views about the nature of and basis for one's knowledge of one's own (...) mental states, including one's beliefs, desires, conscious thinkings, and sensations. Theories of self-knowledge are motivated by the apparent need to account for a number of striking features of at least some such knowledge, which ordinary empirical knowledge, including knowledge of the mental states of others, is typically thought to lack. (shrink)

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Many philosophers believe that the faculty ofintrospection, and the subjective states revealed inintrospection, present difficulties to materialism. This paper argues thatintrospection can be construed physicalistically, and that the states introspected need not be imbued with phenomenally self-revealing qualities. The central argument is that introspected states are identified in terms of the external circumstances in which they occur. It is also argued that this broadly behaviorist perspective can be reconciled with the occurrence of ineffable experiences, (...) and that it presents difficulties for the construal of pleasure offered by classical utilitarianism. (shrink)

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In this paper, I develop a new version of the acquaintance view of the nature ofintrospection of phenomenal states. On the acquaintance view, when one introspects a current phenomenal state of one's, one bears to it the relation of introspective acquaintance. Extant versions of the acquaintance view neglect what I call the phenomenal modification problem. The problem, articulated by Franz Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, is that drawing introspective attention to one's current conscious experience may (...) modify its phenomenology. Failing to take phenomenal modification into account affects the adequacy of extant versions of the acquaintance view. The purpose of this paper is to develop a better version, the integration account, that meets the phenomenal modification challenge while preserving the merits of other versions. (shrink)

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Introspection has traditionally been defined as a privileged way of obtaining beliefs about one’s occurrent mental states, and the idea that it is psychologically and epistemically different from non-introspective belief formation processes has been widely defended. At the same time, philosophers and cognitive scientists alike have pointed out the unreliability of introspective reports in consciousness research. In this paper, I will argue that this dissonance in the literature can be explained by differentiating between infallible and informative introspective beliefs. I (...) will argue that the latter are formed similarly to beliefs about the external world, and are therefore susceptible to similar success and failure conditions. Understandingintrospection as belief-like will help to locate possible sources of error in regular as well as in pathological cases, carrying relevant implications for the relationship between experience, belief, and delusion. (shrink)

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The focus of this paper isintrospection of phenomenal states, i.e. the distinctively first-personal method through which one can form beliefs about the phenomenology of one’s current conscious mental states. I argue that two different kinds of phenomenal stateintrospection should be distinguished: one which involves recognizing and classifying the introspected phenomenal state as an instance of a certain experience type, and another which does not involve such classification. Whereas the former is potentially judgment-like, the latter is not. (...) I call them, respectively, reflectiveintrospection and primitiveintrospection. The purpose of this paper is to argue that primitiveintrospection is a psychologically real phenomenon. I first introduce the distinction and provide some preliminary motivation to accept it (§1). After some set-up considerations (§2), I present my central argument for the existence of a non-classificatory kind of introspective state (§3), what I call the ‘argument from phenomenal-concept acquisition’. Finally, I briefly present some reasons why my distinction may be important for various philosophical debates (§4). (shrink)

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During the last couple of decades, so called representationalist theories of mind have gained increased popularity. These theories describe mental states in terms of representations of external objects and states of affairs. It is also often held that the content of a subject’s thoughts and perceptions is determined by facts outside her mind, such as social relations between her and other people and causal relations between her and external objects. Some representationalists even argue that the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences (...) is determined by external factors in the sense that the truth conditions of statements like: “it looks blue” involve such facts. This entails that so called “phenomenal properties” such as colours are not properties of my experiences or even determined by such properties. This thesis has been labelled “phenomenal externalism” by e.g., Fred Dretske1 and William Lycan2.Introspection has traditionally been described as a subject’s immediate awareness of her own experiences. It has been assumed that the subject has a special and privileged access to her experiences which means that she cannot be mistaken either about the content of her beliefs and experiences or about what they feel like to her. A long lived theory aboutintrospection is that the introspective process is similar to perception, only the objects of the introspective process are “inner” instead of “outer”. This model seems to entail that experiences also share relevant similarities with external objects, such as having intrinsic properties, properties the subject is aware of when observing the objects in question. (shrink)

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The topic ofintrospection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature ofintrospection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states byintrospection? How should we understand the relationship (...) between consciousness and introspective self-knowledge? Should we explain consciousness in terms of introspective self-knowledge or vice versa? Until recently, questions in epistemology and the philosophy of mind were pursued largely in isolation from one another. This volume aims to integrate these two lines of research by bringing together fourteen new essays and one reprinted essay on the relationship betweenintrospection, self-knowledge, and consciousness. (shrink)

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The aim of this chapter is to characterize aestheticintrospection as a starting point for further substantial exploration of its nature. I distinguish three types of aestheticintrospection based on their roles. Type-1 aestheticintrospection contributes to the formation of aesthetic judgement based on aesthetic perception. Type-2 aestheticintrospection provides a second-order aesthetic experience representing a conscious experience as having aesthetic properties. Type-3 aestheticintrospection produces an aesthetic judgment about aesthetic experiences. In arguing for the (...) importance of every type of aestheticintrospection, I present two new concepts of aesthetics: consciousness aesthetics and the art of consciousness. (shrink)

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Claims about the distinctness or non-distinctness of introspective beliefs from the mental states they are about have played a central role in the philosophy ofintrospection in the past fifty years or so. In A Materialist Theory of the Mind and work leading up to it, David Armstrong famously argued against infallibilist theories ofintrospection, and in defence of his own self-scanning theory ofintrospection, on the ground that introspective beliefs are distinct from the mental states they (...) are about. Sydney Shoemaker, one of Armstrong’s most ardent critics, famously argued against Armstrong’s self-scanning theory ofintrospection, and in favour of his own constitutive theory ofintrospection, on the ground that introspective beliefs are not distinct from the mental states they are about. Yet the relevant sense or senses of distinctness involved here, and the role such claims about distinctness plays in such arguments, is notoriously hard to pin down. This essay explores some of the issues concerning distinctness and non-distinctness in the philosophy ofintrospection and in the dispute between Armstrong and Shoemaker and offers a reassessment of some of the central arguments offered in that dispute. (shrink)

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Introspection stands at the interface between two major currents in philosophy and related areas of science: on the one hand, there are metaphysical and scientific questions about the nature of consciousness; and on the other hand, there are normative and epistemological questions about the nature of self-knowledge.Introspection seems tied up with consciousness, to the point that some writers define consciousness in terms ofintrospection; and it is also tied up with self-knowledge, sinceintrospection is the (...) distinctive way in which we come to know about ourselves and, in particular, about our own conscious mental states, processes and events. Each of these topics – consciousness and self-knowledge – has generated an extensive philosophical literature in its own right. But despite some notable exceptions, the relationship between consciousness and self-knowledge has been curiously neglected and remains poorly understood. Indeed, until quite recently, the sub-fields of philosophy of mind and epistemology were pursued largely in isolation from one another. Recent philosophy of mind has been dominated by metaphysical questions about the nature of consciousness and its place in the physical world, while much less attention has been devoted to questions about the epistemic role of consciousness as a source of knowledge and justified belief. Similarly, recent epistemology has been organized around questions about the nature of knowledge and justified belief, but much of this discussion has developed independently of recent work in philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. The impetus behind this volume is to bring together these two lines of research by exploring the nature ofintrospection, which lies at the intersection between consciousness and self-knowledge. This volume collects fourteen new essays and one reprinted essay in which the interplay between concerns in epistemology and the philosophy of mind is a major focus. (shrink)

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The study ofintrospection has, up until now, been predominantly human-centric, with regrettably little attention devoted to the question of whetherintrospection might exist in non-humans, such as animals and artificial intelligence (AI), and what distinct forms it might take. In their target article, Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) aim to address this oversight by offering a non-anthropocentric framework for understandingintrospection that could be used to address these questions. However, their discussions onintrospection in animals (...) and AIs were quite brief. In this commentary, we will build on their suggestions to offer some methodological guidance for how future research intointrospection in animals and AIs might proceed. (shrink)

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Clark and Chalmers propose that the mind extends further than skin and skull. If they are right, then we should expect this to have some effect on our way of knowing our own mental states. If the content of my notebook can be part of my belief system, then looking at the notebook seems to be a way to get to know my own beliefs. However, it is at least not obvious whether self-ascribing a belief by looking at my notebook (...) is a case ofintrospection the same way that knowing my non-extended beliefs is. Traditionally this sort ofintrospection is thought to be privileged and special in ways that the extendedintrospection case seems not to be. There is nothing privileged about looking at my notebook. Anyone could do it. The aim of the paper is to find out how to understand extendedintrospection and whether there is something privileged and special about knowing one’s own extended beliefs. Moreover, the notebook case has close analogs using twenty-first century technology. It seems possible to know our beliefs that are extended to smartphones, wearable technology or a cloud-based data store. First, I present the case of extendedintrospection. I then discuss whether it should be understood as ordinaryintrospection or as mind-reading. Both seem to be bad fits, which finally prompts an original account for extendedintrospection based on epistemic rules. (shrink)

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Detecting introspective errors about consciousness presents challenges that are widely supposed to be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. This is a problem for consciousness science because many central questions turn on when and to what extent we should trust subjects’ introspective reports. This has led some authors to suggest that we should abandonintrospection as a source of evidence when constructing a science of consciousness. Others have concluded that central questions in consciousness science cannot be answered via empirical (...) investigation. I argue that on closer inspection, the challenges associated with detecting introspective errors can be overcome. I demonstrate how natural kind reasoning—the iterative application of inference to the best explanation to home in on and leverage regularities in nature—can allow us to detect introspective errors even in difficult cases such as judgments about mental imagery, and I conclude that worries about intractable methodological challenges in consciousness science are misguided. (shrink)

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Viewed from a certain perspective, nothing can seem more secure thanintrospection. Consider an ordinary conscious episode—say, your current visual experience of the colour of this page. You can judge, when reflecting on this experience, that you have a visual experience as of something white with black marks before you. Does it seem reasonable to doubt this introspective judgement? Surely not—such doubt would seem utterly fanciful. The trustworthiness ofintrospection is not only assumed by commonsense, it is also (...) taken for granted by many of theorists about the mind. Within both philosophy and the science of consciousness it is widely held thatintrospection is generally reliable, at least with respect to the question of one’s current (or immediately prior) conscious states. Without this assumption, we could not make sense of theorists’ widespread use ofintrospection, both in support of their own position and to undermine that of their opponents. (shrink)

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Context: We are presently witnessing a revival of introspective methods, which implicitly challenges an impressive list of in-principle objections that were addressed tointrospection by various philosophers and by behaviorists. Problem: How can one overcome those objections and provideintrospection with a secure basis? Results: A renewed definition ofintrospection as “enlargement of the field of attention and contact with re-enacted experience,” rather than “looking-within,” is formulated. This entails (i) an alternative status of introspective phenomena, which are (...) no longer taken as revelations of some an sich slice of experience, but as full-fledged experiences; and (ii) an alternative view of the validity of first-person reports as “performative coherence” rather than correspondence. A preliminary empirical study of the self-assessed reliability of introspective data using the elicitation interview method is then carried out. It turns out that subjects make use of reproducible processual criteria in order to probe into the authenticity and completeness of their own introspective reports. Implications: Introspective inquiry is likely to have enough resources to “take care of itself.” Constructivist content: It is argued that the failure of the introspectionist wave of the turn of the 19th/20th centuries is mostly due to its unconditional acceptance of the representationalist theory of knowledge, and that alternative non-representationalist criteria of validity give new credibility to introspective knowledge. (shrink)

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Phenomenal beliefs are beliefs about the phenomenal properties of one's concurrent conscious states. It is an article of common sense that such beliefs tend to be justified. Philosophers have been less convinced. It is sometimes claimed that phenomenal beliefs are not on the whole justified, on the grounds that they are typically based onintrospection andintrospection is often unreliable. Here we argue that such reasoning must guard against a potential conflation between two distinct introspective phenomena, which we (...) call fact-introspection and thing -introspection; arguments for the unreliability ofintrospection typically target only the former, leaving the reliability of the latter untouched. In addition, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding thing -introspection that may have a surprising consequence: thing -introspection is not only reliable, but outright infallible. This points at a potential line of defense of phenomenal-belief justification, which here we only sketch very roughly. (shrink)

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The transparency approach tointrospection has received much attention over the last few decades. It is inspired by some wellknown remarks from Gareth Evans (1982). Although this approach can seem quite plausible as applied to belief (and perhaps perception), philosophers tend to be sceptical that it can succeed for other mental kinds. This paper focuses on desire. It lays out in detail a transparency theory of desireintrospection and addresses various concerns and objections to such a theory. The (...) paper takes as its launching point Alex Byrne's (2018) influential work on transparency. (shrink)

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According to some formulations of the thesis of revelation, knowledge about the essences of phenomenal properties is available throughintrospection. But this claim may seem doubtful given relevant limits ofintrospection. This paper articulates the worry and sketches responses to address it.

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According to some formulations of the thesis of revelation, knowledge about the essences of phenomenal properties is available throughintrospection. But this claim may seem doubtful given relevant limits ofintrospection. This paper articulates the worry and sketches responses to address it.

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According to some formulations of the thesis of revelation, knowledge about the essences of phenomenal properties is available throughintrospection. But this claim may seem doubtful given relevant limits ofintrospection. This paper articulates the worry and sketches responses to address it.

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According to some formulations of the thesis of revelation, knowledge about the essences of phenomenal properties is available throughintrospection. But this claim may seem doubtful given relevant limits ofintrospection. This paper articulates the worry and sketches responses to address it.

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It is widely held thatintrospection-based self-ascriptions of mental states are immune to error through misidentification , relative to the first person pronoun. Many have taken such errors to be logically impossible, arguing that the immunity holds as an “absolute” necessity. Here I discuss an actual case of craniopagus twins—twins conjoined at the head and brain—as a means to arguing that such errors are logically possible and, for all we know, nomologically possible. An important feature of the example is (...) that it is one where a person may be said to be introspectively aware of a mental state that occurs outside of her own mind. Implications are discussed for views of the relation betweenintrospection and mental state ownership, and betweenintrospection and epistemic criteria for the “mark of the mental.”. (shrink)

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The introspective devices framework proposed by Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) offers an attractive conceptual tool for evaluating and developing accounts ofintrospection. However, the framework assumes that different views about the nature ofintrospection can be easily evaluated against a set of common criteria. In this paper, I set out to test this assumption by analysing two formal models ofintrospection using the introspective device framework. The question I aim to answer is not only whether models (...) developed outside of philosophy can be successfully evaluated against the set of conceptual criteria proposed by Kammerer and Frankish, but also whether this kind of evaluation can reveal some limitations inherent to the framework. (shrink)

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RésuméFred Dretske a développé, à titre de composante de sa théorie de la conscience, une théorie de I'introspection. Celle-ciprésente une plausibilityé indépendante, elle résiste à des objections qui affectent nombre d'autres théories et elle suggère des liens très féconds dans plusieurs domaines de la science cognitive. La version qu'en donne Dretske est restreinte à la connaissance introspective des états perceptuels. Mon objectif ici est d'étendre la théorie à tous les états mentaux. Le mécanisme qui est fondamental dans cette approche (...) est celui de la «conscience déplacée», c'est-à-dire le fait d'en venir à connaître quelque chose via l'expérience consciente que nous avons de quelque chose d'autre. Nous atteignons la connaissance introspective par l'application à notre propre expérience consciente du monde (et de nos corps) de la connaissance que nous avons de ce qui est de l'ordre du mental. (shrink)

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Introspection, or looking inward to observe one's experience, is inherent in many methods used to study feelings, the experiential component of emotion. Challenges ofintrospection make faithful, high-fidelity descriptions of feelings difficult to attain. A method that (1) cleaves to a specific moment, (2) cleaves to pristine inner experience, (3) brackets presuppositions, and (4) utilizes an iterative process may be particularly well suited to this task. We review some contemporary introspective methods from the perspective of these four methodological (...) constraints, finding that Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) addresses the constraints most fully. We present DES findings on feelings to highlight the unique contributions careful introspective methods make to emotion science. High-fidelity descriptions of feelings are necessary for a complete understanding of emotion. (shrink)

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In their target article, Kammerer and Frankish (K&F) wonder what formsintrospection could take in non-human animals, enhanced humans, artificial intelligences, and aliens. In this short note, I focus on disordered or neurodiverse minds. More specifically, I assess a claim that has often been made more or less implicitly to the effect that, in virtue of their conditions, people with schizophrenia or depersonalization disorder have superior introspective abilities that allow them to discern some important but normally hidden characteristics of (...) our experiences — call this the superintrospectionitis thesis. In the course of my argumentation, I introduce distinctions and questions concerning the nature of the architecture and the function ofintrospection that might enrich K&F's framework. (shrink)

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As an empirical example of introspective conditions in which the normal sense of self is disrupted, the delusion of thought insertion is of special interest to philosophers investigating the epistemic and phenomenological structures ofintrospection. A common strategy is to use immunity to error through misidentification as a tool with which to pick apart the implications of thought insertion for our understanding of the faculty ofintrospection. In this paper I turn that strategy on its head: I draw (...) on our understanding ofintrospection and of thought insertion to make two correctives to the literature on immunity to error through misidentification. The first is the identification of a formal distinction between two phenomena sometimes conflated under the rubric of misidentification errors. The second is a weakening of the presumed significance of claims to immunity to error through misidentification. With these tightenings to the notion of immunity to error through misidentification in hand, we will be in a better position to turn again to questions about the epistemic and phenomenological nature ofintrospection. (shrink)

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My first aim in the chapter is to provide an overview of African epistemology, partly to acquaint the reader with the field and partly to show thatintrospection as a source of knowledge has yet to receive any sustained consideration in it. In the rest of the essay I expound and motivate as prima facie plausible the characteristically African view that one’s personal identity is essentially (even if not exhaustively) relational in some way and argue that, if that view (...) were true, thenintrospection would be of limited use in learning particularities about a person, such as who she is as essentially distinct from others and even whether she continues to exist. I conclude that there has been unacknowledged good reason for the African tradition not to have highlightedintrospection as a distinct source of knowledge, at least when it comes to knowledge of the self. (shrink)

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The last chapter involves circumventing the difficulties raised in the previous chapter. The commitment to observation as a two-term relationship will be relaxed by adopting a special form of sensation--kinesthesis-proprioception--as the exemplary model. A more technical version ofintrospection--the concept of which is garnered from the experimental uses ofintrospection--is considered and the adaptability of experimentalintrospection to the requirement of a kinesthetic-proprioceptive model of observation is examined. The causal features of the former is used to reinforce (...) positive results from the examination. In the course of this discussion, it becomes clear that the defense of an observation model ofintrospection is strengthened once the failure to acknowledgeintrospection's causal features is repaired. ;As a result of adopting consciousness as distinctive of mental phenomena, a host of other problems with regardingintrospection as a variety of sense observation arises. The paradigm for observation, sensation, involves a relationship between two disparate entities. Efforts to modelintrospection on sensation is deemed inadequate insofar asintrospection does not also involve two entities. In presenting the various ways in which consciousness is supposed to be an obstacle tointrospection in the third chapter, we find that they are all variations on a single theme: Consciousness underminesintrospection as a form of observation by allowing the involvement of only a single entity. The first set of objections point to the absence of the introspecting subject. The second set of objections deny the presence of an introspected object. ;The second chapter is devoted to an investigation ofintrospection's supposed failure to produce descriptions of the mental on par with the descriptions of the physical yielded by sensation. The failure is attributed to the alleged conflict between characterizing mental phenomena as private and referring to such phenomena, a conflict expressed by Wittgenstein's private language argument. Efforts are made to reinstate descriptions of the mental. These efforts involve abandoning privacy as characteristic of the mental in favor of consciousness and incorporating behavior into the concept of the mental. The causal relations in which mental phenomena participate are employed to cement consciousness and behavior into a unified concept of the mental. ;The first chapter consists of an examination of Locke's theory ofintrospection. The traditional understanding ofintrospection as a variety of observation does not include causal features. However, in this thesis, we discover that Locke, one of the precursors of this traditional view, does giveintrospection a causal role. For what Locke does is modelintrospection upon sensation . The parallels that Locke draws betweenintrospection and sensation are traced. Furthermore, it is shown that a proper perspective on various alternative accounts of Locke's notion ofintrospection can be gained only within the context ofintrospection's causal role. ;The basic problem discussed in this thesis is to determine whetherintrospection is a variety of observation. This involves investigating whether there are any features of the concepts ofintrospection or observation which militate against subsuming the former under the latter. The investigation proceeds by way of the presentation of a theory ofintrospection conceived as a type of observation followed by a defense of this theory against criticism. (shrink)

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One of David Rosenthal’s many important contributions to the philosophy of mind was his clear and unshirking account ofintrospection. Here we argue that while there is a kind ofintrospection (we call it “reflectiveintrospection”) that Rosenthal’s account may be structurally fit to accommodate, there is also a second kind (“primitiveintrospection”) that his account cannot recover. We introduce Rosenthal’s account ofintrospection in §1, present the case for the psychological reality of primitive (...) class='Hi'>introspection in §2, and argue that Rosenthal’s account lacks the resources to accommodate it in §3. (shrink)

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If we use “introspection” just as a label for that essentially first-person way we have of knowing about our own mental states, then it’s pretty obvious that if there is such a thing asintrospection, we know on that basis what we believe, and want, and intend, at least in many ordinary cases. I assume there is such a thing asintrospection. So I think the hard question is how it works. But can you know that you (...) know on the basis ofintrospection? Well, that all depends on howintrospection works. I present one account of howintrospection works and argue that on that account, you can know that you know ordinary empirical things on the basis ofintrospection. As far as how we know about them is concerned, there’s no principled difference between the factive and non-factive mental states. (shrink)

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Sceptics vis-à-visintrospection often base their scepticism on ‘phenomenological disputes’, ‘introspective disagreement’, or ‘introspective disputes’ (Kriegel, 2007; Bayne and Spener, 2010; Schwitzgebel, 2011): introspectors massively diverge in their opinions about experiences, and there seems to be no method to resolve these issues. Sceptics take this to show thatintrospection lacks any epistemic merit. Here, I provide a list of paradigmatic examples, distill necessary and sufficient conditions for IDs, present the sceptical argument encouraged by IDs, and review the two (...) main strategies to reject such a scepticism. However, both types of strategies are unsatisfactory. In order to saveintrospection from the looming sceptical threat, I advocate a deflationary strategy, based on either an ‘Argument from Perceptual Kinship’ or an ‘Argument from Ownership’. In the end, there cannot be any genuine IDs, for nothing can fulfil the reasonable conditions for IDs. What looks like IDs may instead be indicators of phenomenal variation. Debates that look like IDs may then arise even ifintrospection were a perfect method to know one’s mind. Thus, scepticism vis-à-visintrospection based on IDs rests on shaky grounds. (shrink)

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The ubiquity of inner awareness thesis states that all conscious states of normal adult humans are characterised by an inner awareness of that very state. UIA-Backers support this thesis while UIA-Skeptics reject it. At the heart of their dispute is a recalcitrant phenomenological disagreement. UIA-Backers claim that phenomenological investigation reveals ‘peripheral inner awareness’ to be a constant presence in their non-introspective experiences. UIA-Skeptics deny that their non-introspective experiences are characterised by inner awareness, and maintain that inner awareness is only gained (...) when they explicitly introspect. Each camp has put forward a range of arguments designed to resolve this dispute, but I argue that none of these arguments has genuine dialectical purchase. This leads me to develop a compromise position that trades on the contribution that affordances can make to our phenomenology. According to the Affordance Model of inner awareness, all conscious states of normal adult humans are characterised by an affordance of introspectability. In line with the UIA-Skeptic, non-introspective experiences are not characterised by inner awareness. But against the traditional UIASkeptic, non-introspective experiences are characterised by an awareness of the opportunity forintrospection. On this view, our capacity to gain inner awareness of our current experience is a ubiquitous feature of our phenomenology. I show how the Affordance Model respects the driving phenomenological intuitions of both the UIA-Backers and the traditional UIA-Skeptics, and suggest that it is able to explain why neither camp achieves an accurate description of how inner awareness figures in their phenomenology. (shrink)

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This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. It won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Henceintrospection is here divided into two categories:introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, andintrospection of broadly perceptual events, on the other. I shall assume (...) that the latter exists while arguing that the former doesn't (or not in the case of judgments and decisions, at least). Section 1 makes some preliminary points and distinctions, and outlines the scope of the argument. Section 2 presents and motivates the general model ofintrospection that predicts a divided result. Section 3 provides independent evidence for the conclusion that judgments and decisions aren't introspectable. Section 4 then replies to a number of objections to the argument, the most important of which is made from the perspective of so-called "dual systems theories" of belief formation and decision making. The upshot is a limited form of eliminativism aboutintrospection, in respect of at least two core categories of propositional attitude. (shrink)

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Traditionally conceived,introspection is a form of nonsensuous perception that allows the mind to scrutinize at least some of its own states while it is experiencing them. The traditional account ofintrospection has been in disrepute ever since Ryle argued that the very idea ofintrospection is a logical muddle. Recent critics such as William Lyons, John Searle, and Sydney Shoemaker argue that this disrepute is well-deserved. Three distinct objections to the traditional account ofintrospection are (...) considered and rejected. It is argued that critics of the traditional account ofintrospection fail to adequately distinguish potential objects ofintrospection. Further, it is argued that at least two cognitive states are properly understood as objects ofintrospection. The conclusions reached suggest that there are sufficient reasons to reconsider ther merits of the traditional account ofintrospection. (shrink)

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Clark and Chalmers propose that the mind extends further than skin and skull. If they are right, then we should expect this to have some effect on our way of knowing our own mental states. If the content of my notebook can be part of my belief system, then looking at the notebook seems to be a way to get to know my own beliefs. However, it is at least not obvious whether self-ascribing a belief by looking at my notebook (...) is a case ofintrospection the same way that knowing my non-extended beliefs is. Traditionally this sort ofintrospection is thought to be privileged and special in ways that the extendedintrospection case seems not to be. There is nothing privileged about looking at my notebook. Anyone could do it. The aim of the paper is to find out how to understand extendedintrospection and whether there is something privileged and special about knowing one’s own extended beliefs. Moreover, the notebook case has close analogs using twenty-first century technology. It seems possible to know our beliefs that are extended to smartphones, wearable technology or a cloud-based data store. First, I present the case of extendedintrospection. I then discuss whether it should be understood as ordinaryintrospection or as mind-reading. Both seem to be bad fits, which finally prompts an original account for extendedintrospection based on epistemic rules. (shrink)

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The aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for extending the idea of transparentintrospection to wishes. First, I elucidate the notion of transparentintrospection and highlight its advantages over rival accounts of self-knowledge. Then I pose several problems that seem to obstruct the extension of transparentintrospection to wishes. In order to overcome these problems, I call into question the standard propositional attitude analysis of non-doxastic attitudes. My considerations lead to a non-orthodox account of (...) attitudes in general and wishes in particular in light of which the problems presented in Sect. 2 disappear. (shrink)

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This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. I t won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Henceintrospection is here divided into two categories:introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, andintrospection of broadly perceptual events, on the other. I shall (...) assume that the latter exists while arguing that the fonner doesn't . Section I makes some preliminary points and distinctions, and outlines the scope of the argument. Section 2 presents and motivates the general model ofintrospection that predicts a divided result. Section 3 provides independent evidence for the conclusion that judgments and decisions aren't introspectable. Section 4 then replies to a number of objections to the argument, the most important of which is made from the perspective of so-called "dual systems theories" of belief formation and decision making, The upshot is a limited form of eliminativism aboutintrospection, in respect of at least two core categories of propositional attitude. (shrink)

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This chapter discusses the main types of so-called ’subjective measures of consciousness’ used in current-day science of consciousness. After explaining the key worry about such measures, namely the problem of an ever-present response bias, I discuss the question of whether subjective measures of consciousness are introspective. I show that there is no clear answer to this question, as proponents of subjective measures do not employ a worked-out notion of subjective access. In turn, this makes the problem of response bias less (...) tractable than it might otherwise be. (shrink)

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In this paper, I sketch a general framework for theorizing about bias and bias attributions. According to the account, paradigmatic cases of bias involve systematic departures from genuine norms. I attempt to show that the account illuminates a number of important psychological phenomena, including: the fact that accusations of bias frequently inspire not only denials but also countercharges of bias (“you only think that I'm biased because you're biased!”); the fact that we tend to see ourselves as less biased than (...) our peers (the so‐called ‘bias blind spot’); and the fact that we tend to see people who share our views as less biased than people who don't. I explore the circumstances in which we're committed to believing that those who disagree with us are not only mistaken but also biased simply because they disagree with us in the way that they do. In addition, the account also sheds light on another notorious and well‐documented psychological phenomenon: the fact thatintrospection is an unreliable way of detecting our biases. On the account that I offer, the unreliability ofintrospection for this purpose isn't a contingent fact that depends on the finer details of human psychology but rather holds of necessity: even God could not have made us creatures who reliably detect our own biases by way ofintrospection. (shrink)

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In this paper, we argue that knowledge of emotions essentially depends on introspecting the phenomenology of emotional experiences, and thatintrospection of emotional experiences is a process by stages, where the most fundamental stage is a non-classificatory introspective state, i.e., one that does not depend on the subject’s classifying the introspected emotion as an instance of any experience type. We call such a non-classificatory kind ofintrospection primitiveintrospection. Our main goal is to show that, although not (...) sufficient, primitiveintrospection is a necessary ground to acquire knowledge of emotions. Our main argument is phenomenological: by examining a variety of examples, we suggest that an accurate analysis of the introspective process through which one comes to know, or refines one’s knowledge of, one’s current emotion requires that one primitively introspects it. (shrink)

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I argue thatintrospection recruits the same mental mechanism as that which is required for the production of ordinary speech acts. Inintrospection, in effect, we intentionally tell ourselves that we are in some mental state, aiming thereby to produce belief about that state in ourselves. On one popular view of speech acts, however, this is precisely what speakers do when speaking to others. On this basis, I argue that every bias discovered by social epistemology applies to (...) class='Hi'>introspection and other forms of self-directed representation. If so, it becomes unclear in what sense social epistemology is social. (shrink)

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Kammerer and Frankish (this issue) challenge us to expand our conception ofintrospection beyond neurotypical human cases. This article describes a possible 'ancillary mind' modelled on a system envisioned in Leckie's (2013) science fiction novel Ancillary Justice. The ancillary mind constitutes a borderline case between a communicating group of individuals and a single, spatially distributed mind. It occupies a grey zone with respect to personal identity and subject individuation, neither determinately one person or subject nor determinately many persons or (...) subjects, and thus some of its processes might be neither determinatelyintrospection within a mind nor determinately communication between minds. If ancillary minds defy discrete countability, the same might be true for some actual minds on Earth. Kammerer and Frankish's research programme can be extended to include not only the study of possible forms ofintrospection, but also the study of possible mental activity intermediate betweenintrospection and communication. (shrink)

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In response to Petitmengin and Bitbol's recent account of first-person methodologies in the study of consciousness, I provide a revised model of our introspective knowledge of our own conscious experience. This model, which I call the existential constitution model of phenomenal knowledge, avoids the problems that Petitmengin and Bitbol identify with standard observational models ofintrospection while also avoiding an underlying metaphorical misconception in their own proximity model, which misconstrues first-person knowledge of consciousness in terms of a dichotomous epistemic (...) relationship. The end result is a clearer understanding of the unique nature and epistemic properties of our knowledge of consciousness, as well as the epistemic status of subsequent first-person reports on conscious experience. (shrink)

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Building on past constructive criticism, the present study provides further methodological development focused on the elimination of bias that may occur during first-person observation. First, various sources of errors that may accompanyintrospection are distinguished based on previous critical literature. Four main errors are classified, namely attentional, attributional, conceptual, and expressional error. Furthermore, methodological recommendations for the possible elimination of these errors have been determined based on the analysis and focused excerpting of introspective scientific literature. The following groups of (...) methodological recommendations were determined: 1) a better focusing of the subject’s attention to their mental processes, 2) providing suitable stimuli, and 3) the sharing of introspective experience between subjects. Furthermore, the potential of adjustments in introspective research designs for eliminating attentional, attributional, conceptual, and expressional error is discussed. (shrink)

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