On the possibility and reality of introspection

International audienceThe reliability and accuracy of introspective research has been and is still a topic for hot debate (Hurlburt & Schwitzgebel, 2007). In the history of philosophy and psychology, conflicting claims have been made about whether this exploration of the so-called "inner" realm can be made reliable at all. According to the Cartesian, empiricist, and phenomenological lineage, consciousness is necessarily infallible about itself. Husserl (1913) thus replaced the standard psychological division between inner and outer perception he had inherited from Brentano, with a division between certain (immediate and complete) and uncertain(mediate and incomplete) perception within the flux of lived experience. Perception of immediate lived experience is certain because the way it appears coincides with the way it is, whereas perception of spatial objects is uncertain because at each moment they present themselves through partial profiles (or "adumbrations": abschattungen) whose spontaneous ontological interpretation can later be disconfirmed. The opposite view, however, has gained prominence during the past century. From the behaviorist rejection of introspection to the thorough doubts expressed by Schwitzgebel (2011), the common view has been that as soon as we try to report our experience, we fall into confusion, we gain no true knowledge, and we even tend to confabulate (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977)...