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The transformation of introspection
Author(s) -
Lyons William
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1983.tb00599.x
Subject(s) - introspection , physicalism , eliminative materialism , materialism , epistemology , psychology , philosophy of mind , philosophy , cognitive science , metaphysics
In this essay I examine critically the transformation that has occurred in the accounts or models of the nature of introspection in psychology and philosophy from the heyday of introspectionism 100 years ago, via behaviourism to contemporary reductive or eliminative materialism, with a few indications of how this is already being transformed into functional physicalism. Introspection is still with us, not only in the sense that, as it has been suggested recently, ‘in our culture, we take it for granted that each of us knows his own mind directly and can describe its operations' (Hebb, 1969, p. 55) but also because, no matter how uneasy psychologists and philosophers may be from time to time about its mention, they cannot do without it in their professional work.