Honestly looking back!

Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts, feelings and actions.

The philosopher Plato asked, "…why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?"  While introspection is applicable to many facets of philosophical thought it is perhaps best known for its role in epistemology, in this context introspection is often compared with perception, reason, memory, and testimony as a source of knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Introspection

Hi all,

introspection is a very tricky question. Simply looking back is not as easy as it may seem, because - in terms of ones own thoughts and feelings  - these so-assessed contents are private. I.e. they are only assessable for the one undergoing these thoughts or feelings. That however would imply that we have no truth-criteria to assess the validity of these self-reports - we could be simply mistaken about our own feelings and thoughts?

Edmund Husserl tried -building on the Cartesian method of doubt - to introduce self-observations of conscious contents into philosophy and psychology and developed phenomenology, i.e. a science of that what appears.

However, how far such a method is actually applicable in the scientific investigation of consciousness is currently a hotly debated topic.

But merely looking back will not do the job - things are far more complicated.

best

Tom

Here is a major article on introspection

http://www.jstor.org/stable/239333?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 Dear Subhas, Tom, and Paul

Thanks for your excellent explanations.

Regards

Why not you apply the valid and reliable scales on these dimensions?

Thanks to all the participants with a hope to get more exciting responses.

Regards

Dear Mustafa,

the problem with these introspections is that they try to assess private states, i.e. ones own personal feelings, cognitions and emotions. The crux of these personalised states is that they are personalised, hence they are the states of someone and they are - arguably only assessable for the one who has personalised these for him/herself. But it that is so, then these states carry something over and above a mere biological or physical description. Wanting to utilise introspection to get these states accessed nevertheless is thus venturing out into a realm where the sample-size of your research will always only be n=1, and with that the idea of valid and reliable scales go out of the window. Of course you could try to argue that by taking a bigger sample and averaging the sample out, you may be able to evade this problem, but - bear in mind - with that you have actually stripped the relevant states exactly of that what they are supposed to be about: the personalised quality of being states for someone.

Best

Tom

Dear Tom

You have explained the phenomenon very excellently. But my problem is how to look back in any fruitful manner. How to cope with the reality of the past? 

Dear Mohammad,

I thought I had been aware of this. Now let's take a look at this looking back. I can look back in my diary, at other people's diary or at any kind of historical record. That's looking back into the past, trying to get a glimpse of the past, according to empirical and tangible evidence, assessable to scientific scrutiny.

But such a look back is not - by all means - an introspection, i.e. the inspection of one's own inner whereabouts. So we are - to stay within the limits of your question - not only looking back, but looking back to our inner self (in order to qualify as an introspection). But if we do so, everything I said above still applies.

I like it when you speak of the reality of the past. Is there such a reality - or is it just a reality for me, for you, for someone else?

Best

Tom

Dear Tom

You are right. The reality whether a past one or a present or future one allures us. However, it might happen sometimes in one's lifetime that an introspection becomes  a necessity for many reasons. But how? The methodology may make a lot of difference.

Regards

Thanks Tom for your giving detail explanation.

Dear Sir

Infact introspection is a subjective phenomena, and to objectively study the same requires high amount of training. This can be in terms of written notes of how one is feeling at the moment, or of the past. Being retrospective in thinking can have its own limitations. Diary writing, case notes, can bring a level of objectivity in this regard.

 Dear Mohammad,

It may be worthwhile  to check how introspection would come off if we apply the criteria of rigorous scientific observation. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century psychologists believed that introspection enabled for rigorous scientific observation of  private contents of consciousness provided that the observer was trained to make that kind of observations in an objective way.  However, then Watson published a legendary article in which introspection as a scientific method was shot down in the flames. His main argument was that rigorous scientific observation required that an observation made by one scientist must be suited to be checked by other scientists.  For instance, if I look at the outside world around me, and see two tomatoes and observe that one tomato is red while the other is green, my observation can get a scientific status if colleagues who observe the same tomatoes arrive at the same conclusion and confirm that the one tomato is red, indeed, and the other is green. However, when making observations of my inner life through introspection, I cannot invite colleagues to have a look in my private conscious experience to check the validity of my observation as they could check the validity of my observation concerning the two tomatoes. 

Watson's article was very influential and it was the onset of behaviorism in psychology. (Behaviorism claimed that scientific psychology should stick to observations of overt behavioral phenomena such as the effects of particular rewards and punishments on particular overt actions.) However, is it really true that introspection does not allow for observations that can be checked by other observers? Isn't it possible that I describe my private experience and have it compared with descriptions others make of their private experiences.  the answer depends on the extent to which private observation or experience can be adequately communicated.  In this respect it is important to consider that any observational content (whether private or not) has two facets that roughly boil dowt to the Aristotelian distinction between materia (hule) and forma (morfe).

First there's pure sensuous awareness of, what philosophers call, the qualia. And that cannot be communicated. for instance, when I describe one tomato as "red" ant the other as "green", and you confirm it, I have no evidence that my experience of green is the same as yours. It is perfectly possible that your color spectrum is inverted in comparison with mines and that you experience "red" in the way I experience "green."

Second, however,  observational contents involve also structure. For instance, My observation of the tomatoes is structured into a distinction between two tomatoes with different colors. That distinction can be communicated and so be validated. Hence, introspection may enable for rigorous scientific observation, but it is restricted to one aspect of the observation, which is the structural aspect or  "mere differentiation" So I can observe, through introspection, that when I am very hungry I enjoy food that I normally would detest. Others can confirm that through their own introspection an in that way validate my observation. However, my scientific conclusion is restricted to the link between a feelings referred to as "hunger" and the liking of food, without giving an answer about whether what I feel when I describe myself as hungry is the same as what others feel when they describe themselves as hungry.

One could regret that just the finest aspect of the experience of life is beyond the scope of rigorous scientific observation.  Without the qualia, we would be zombies, just mere biological machines without love, without suffering, without freedom without dignity. Fortunately,  the mathematician Gödel has demonstrated that there must be more truths than can be proven. In this way subjective experience can be very valuable and even reveal truth. However, because we lack the possibility to check it fully by rigorous scientific observation, that presumed truth will always be contestable by others who feel differently.

  Best regards

    Guido

 Dear Professor Guido

I am very much thankful to you for such a lucid and comprehensive elaboration. While reading your post, I enjoyed a feeling as if I was sitting in front of the chair of the professor and listening to this beautiful discourse. Thanks again, Sir.

May I request you to guide me as how to make an introspection?

With best regards

Dear Mohammad,

Just an idea. I would recommend to organize a seminar or a thesis project in order to have some interested students scrutinizing the literature on introspection examining to which extent  the two types of introspection I suggested could be traced. Notice that two types of introspection have been advanced previously, for instance, by Daniel Dennett.  In his book "Consciousness Explained" he distinguishes between (purely private) "autophenomenal" and (communicable) "allophenomenal" consciousness.

   kind regards and wishes for success

Dear Guido

What a brilliant idea!

Best regards

Introspection is a healthy practice for controlling mind by taking decisive action while drawing a line of demarcation .

In introspection ,we have to carry the root of our action & to think  within ourselves & than take a right type of action .

While carrying out our activities ,for making a right type of action introspection within us silently in our mind & to think calmly & quietly may certainly desired result .

Introspection is for us for inner guide line & when necessary to find the necessary result we have to make a practice to sit calmly by bringing the action in our mind & to sit for few minutes & after wards we have to call for inner advice what we may call a practice of introspection with successive result.

This is my personal opinion 

Dear Rohit Sir

You are right. Introspection is for inner guidance as well.

Thanks a lot.

Regards

Introspection can be possible in first place if somebody accepts that he has done wrong at some point. Otherwise a forced introspection is a false exercise in itself. 

Openly discussing it with others can also be crucial and then one has to think within himself how he can improve upon the grey area. 

Introspection is actually an integrated process of identifying strength and weakness then planning strategically to overcome the limitations or weaknesses. BUT, most important part of introspection is accepting the weakness as challenges and then one should knock down the same.

Dear all,

I am not quite sure what is going on here, it seems to be turning into an exercise of justifying why introspection may be useful and for what kind of purposes. But that was not the actual question.

The question Mohammad seems to be asking is more one circling around the problem of how the I (or ego, whatever you want to call it), which is supposedly living in the now-moment, can - at the same time - experience this now-moment and cast a reflective gaze upon, i.e. introspect. Closely connected to this problem is the problem of what sort of scientific validity such introspective insights could - should have.

And these more fundamental questions appear to demand an answer that goes beyond the justification of introspective exercises?

Best

Tom

Thanks a lot, dear Tom!

Introspection is an inward process of revisiting one's past action/ideas/belief etc. and re-examining them with fresh unbiased mind in an undisturbed environment at a different point of time about its justification,correctness or otherwise. The outcome is personal .It does not require any validation whatsoever.

Dear Bedprakas,

the way you define introspection does not seem to differ very much from a critical memory-retrieval, whereby stored and memorised aspects of ones past are re-visted and critically assessed or examined?

But that would then mean that the concept of introspection does only add the critical stance that surrounds this retrieval-exercise to the normal act of remembering? I am not sure that such a definition actually hits the nail on its head?

The crux of these introspections does indeed seem to be the obtaining of personal data (from the first-person-perspective), but - as it is quite vibrantly debated in psychology and philosophy - if this sort of personal data is to be used within a scientific context the question of validity cannot be ignored without rendering the complete exercise of introspection pointless?

Best

Tom

Dear Tom,

Thanks for your observations. Perhaps you may  like to make a distinction between rethinking ,revising and reviewing as one category to Introspection as another.In all categories however,memory-retrieval is common.In rethinking,revising or reviewing , which may be considered as secondary action,data has a definite role for a final conclusion/decision.Introspection, to my understanding,is a process which may even span over a period of time of subjecting the earlier decision/action/belief etc. to internal scrutiny along with   personal value judgement.I do not have any idea how introspection is used within a scientific context.

Best

Bedprakas

Dear Bedprakas,

memory-retrieval or memorising is concerned with the contents of memory, i.e. that what is to be retrieved from memory. When we thus talk about memorising in relation to, let's say the children's birthday-party, we are interested in the memorised details that form our memory of that event (i.e. the cake - or its absence - the guests, the happy faces of the kids and so on). And of course we can re-run these events in our mind by applying a - now - critical stance to it (should I have invited the neighbours?).

Introspection however is an attempt to perceive ones own psychological processes, i.e. the emotional and mental components that are involved in our psychological functioning, as for example in the birthday-example. Hence, an introspective self-observation has its focus upon the processes and no longer merely on the contents.

This altered focus brings about different results, whereby the results of the second - introspective - take are supposed to contribute to our (scientifically valid - so it is hoped) understanding of the workings of our consciousness. 

Of course, what one makes of introspection would be subject to an initial clarification of what the term should/must entail, but the current philosophical/psychological definition of introspection is along the lines as outlined above. 

Best

Tom

Dear Tom,

Thanks for comments.

Best

Bedprakas