The Unreliability of Naive Introspection

We are prone to gross error, even in favorable circumstances of extended reflection, about our own ongoing conscious experience, our current phenomenology. Even in this apparently privileged domain, our self-knowledge is faulty and untrustworthy. Examples highlighted in this paper include: emotional experience, peripheral vision, and the phenomenology of thought. Philosophical foundationalism supposing that we infer an external world from secure knowledge of our own consciousness is almost exactly backward.

[1]  J. Watson.  Psychology As The Behaviorist Views It , 2011 .

[2]  Edward Bradford Titchener,et al.  The Schema of Introspection , 2009 .

[3]  Daniel M. Haybron.  Do We Know How Happy We Are? On Some Limits of Affective Introspection and Recall , 2007 .

[4]  Eric Schwitzgebel,et al.  No unchallengeable epistemic authority, of any sort, regarding our own conscious experience – Contra Dennett? , 2007 .

[5]  S. Dea.  Against Cartesian Philosophy , 2006 .

[6]  Eric Schwitzgebel.  Do Things Look Flat , 2006 .

[7]  Yifeng Zhou,et al.  Do We Dream in Color? Cultural Variations and Skepticism , 2006 .

[8]  H. Eysenck,et al.  Thinking movement and the creation of dance through numbers , 2006 .

[9]  W. S. Robinson.  Thoughts Without Distinctive Non-Imagistic Phenomenology , 2005 .

[10]  G. Ryle,et al.  The concept of mind. , 2004, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[11]  D. Pitt,et al.  The Phenomenology of Cognition Or What Is It Like to Think That P , 2004 .

[12]  Robert A. Wilson,et al.  INTENTIONALITY AND PHENOMENOLOGY , 2003 .

[13]  A. Mack.  Inattentional Blindness , 2003 .

[14]  Eric Schwitzgebel.  Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White , 2002 .

[15]  A. Marcel,et al.  Consciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: a theoretical framework. , 2002, Psychological review.

[16]  M. Tye.  Representationalism and the Transparency of Experience , 2002 .

[17]  Brie Gertler.  Introspecting Phenomenal States , 2001 .

[18]  H. Robinson.  Perception, Knowledge and Belief , 2001 .

[19]  Tim Shallice,et al.  Introspective physicalism as an approach to the science of consciousness , 2001, Cognition.

[20]  Michael S. Gordon,et al.  How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Human Echolocation , 2000 .

[21]  Dorit Bar-On.  Speaking My Mind , 2000 .

[22]  Fred I. Dretske,et al.  Perception, Knowledge, and Belief: Thought and Intentionality , 2000 .

[23]  Nigel J. T. Thomas.  Are theories of imagery theories of imagination?: An active perception approach to conscious mental content , 1999 .

[24]  H. Kornblith.  What Is It like to Be Me , 1998 .

[25]  John Rowan,et al.  Consciousness and Experience , 1997 .

[26]  Paul Skokowski.  Naturalizing the Mind , 1996 .

[27]  Christopher Peacocke,et al.  Our Entitlement to Self-Knowledge , 1995 .

[28]  J. O'Regan,et al.  Solving the "real" mysteries of visual perception: the world as an outside memory. , 1992, Canadian journal of psychology.

[29]  Russell T. Hurlburt,et al.  Sampling Normal and Schizophrenic Inner Experience , 1990 .

[30]  Elaine Limbrick,et al.  That Nothing is Known , 1989 .

[31]  Tyler Burge,et al.  Individualism and Self-knowledge , 1988 .

[32]  D. Rosenthal.  Two concepts of consciousness , 1986 .

[33]  Timothy D. Wilson,et al.  Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. , 1977 .

[34]  David Hume.  A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects , 1972 .

[35]  A. Louch.  I.—PRIVILEGED ACCESS , 1965 .

[36]  D. Armstrong.  Is Introspective Knowledge Incorrigible , 1963 .

[37]  B. Skinner,et al.  The operational analysis of psychological terms , 1945, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[38]  G. Warnock,et al.  A TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE , 1936 .

[39]  Edwin G. Boring,et al.  The Stimulus-Error , 1921 .

[40]  E. Titchener.  Primer Of Psychology , 1898 .

[41]  A. Goldman.  Epistemology and the Evidential Status of Introspective Reports , 2010 .

[42]  Tara Chand,et al.  Text book of psychology , 2009 .

[43]  Maja Spener.  Phenomenal Adequacy and Introspective Evidence , 2007 .

[44]  A. Lutz,et al.  Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness , 2007 .

[45]  Alva Noë,et al.  Action in Perception , 2006, Representation and Mind.

[46]  T. Horgan,et al.  Internal-World Skepticism and the Self-Presentational Nature of Phenomenal Consciousness , 2006 .

[47]  Uriah Kriegel.  The Same-Order Monitoring Theory of Consciousness , 2006 .

[48]  Eric Schwitzgebel.  Do You Have Constant Tactile Experience of Your Feet in Your Shoes? Or Is Experience Limited to What's in Attention? , 2006 .

[49]  J. Schooler,et al.  Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection. , 2004 .

[50]  Eric Schwitzgebel,et al.  Introspective Training Apprehensively Defended: Reflections on Titchener's Lab Manual. , 2004 .

[51]  D. Chalmers.  The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief , 2003 .

[52]  Quentin Smith,et al.  Consciousness: New Philosophical Essays , 2003 .

[53]  T. Horgan,et al.  The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality , 2002 .

[54]  David Hume.  An enquiry concerning human understanding ; A dissertation on the passions ; An enquiry concerning the principles of morals ; and, The natural history of religion , 2002 .

[55]  Alva Noë,et al.  Is the visual world a grand illusion , 2002 .

[56]  Eric Schwitzgebel.  How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery , 2001 .

[57]  R. Moran.  Authority and Estrangement , 2001 .

[58]  Ronald A. Rensink,et al.  On the Failure to Detect Changes in Scenes Across Brief Interruptions , 2000 .

[59]  Nigel J. T. Thomas.  Are theories of imagery theories of imagination? , 1999, Cogn. Sci..

[60]  S. Blackmore,et al.  Letters to the Editor: Text, Consciousness, and Control: Who's Looking at Wisdom? , 1999 .

[61]  Charles Siewert.  The significance of consciousness , 1998 .

[62]  V. McGeer.  Is self-knowledge an empirical problem ? Renegotiating the space of philosophical explanation , 1996 .

[63]  K. A. Ericsson,et al.  Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data, Rev. ed. , 1993 .

[64]  Paul Thagard,et al.  Epistemology and cognition , 1991 .

[65]  P. Churchland.  Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States , 1985 .

[66]  René Descartes,et al.  The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy , 1985 .

[67]  P. Bayle.  The dictionary historical and critical of Mr. Peter Bayle , 1984 .

[68]  G. Dockray,et al.  Gut reactions , 1981, Nature.

[69]  D. Bem.  Self-Perception Theory , 1972 .

[70]  George Berkeley.  A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge, 1734 , 1971 .

[71]  Jaakko Hintikka,et al.  Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance? , 1962 .

[72]  J. Locke.  An Essay concerning Human Understanding , 1924, Nature.

[73]  E. Titchener.  Scientific Books: Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes , 1910 .

[74]  Mandy Eberhart,et al.  A text-book of psychology , 1909 .

[75]  W. James,et al.  The principles of psychology , 1890 .

[76]  D. Spalding.  The Principles of Psychology , 1873, Nature.