Naive Introspection in the Philosophy of Perception

The paper argues that current philosophers of perception rely on introspection in two distinct ways—introspective access and introspective method—without clearly distinguishing them. Concerns raised over a century ago by Introspectionist Psychologists about using introspection to gather data on consciousness apply to these contemporary philosophical uses but remain unacknowledged. Applying this distinction reveals that arguments based on introspective phenomenal descriptions are methodologically flawed. The critique does not reject introspection entirely but calls for more careful application in philosophical theorizing.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In this paper I critically examine uses of introspection in present-day philosophy of perception. First, I introduce a distinction between two different meanings of the term ‘introspection’: introspective access and introspective method. I show that they are both at work in the philosophy of perception but not adequately distinguished. I then lay out some concerns about the use of introspection to collect data about consciousness that were raised in over a hundred years ago, by some early experimentalist psychologists, part of so-called ‘Introspectionist Psychology’. As I argue, these concerns apply to current philosophical uses of introspection but they are not acknowledged, much less addressed. I explain this by applying the distinction between introspective access and introspective method. As a result, extant arguments relying on introspection-based phenomenal descriptions are methodologically problematic. These problems do not call into question the use of introspection in theorising altogether. But we need to take more care in how we use it.