ABSTRACT

IN addition to the supposedly extra-mental objects of perception discussed in the previous chapters, there is a class of introspective objects which belong to the conscious experience of the knowing subject. Perception and perceptual memory are both extrospective in that they are conversant with public perceptual objects; introspection, on the other hand, is directed towards the private and the subjective. Both extrospection and introspection have their origin in the inspectively given which is neither "objective" not "subjective". The objects of introspection include emotions, hedonic feelings, desires, volitions, and even cognitive processes like perception, memory, and conception in so far as these are considered in the context of the subject's conscious life rather than in their capacity of referring to supposedly extra-mental objects. Introspection culminates in self-cognition, the subject's apprehension of himself as the unity in and of his private states. I shall attempt in the present chapter to show that although the analysis of introspection presents problems and difficulties peculiar to it and not encountered in the several forms of extrospection, nevertheless the introspective situation has essentially the same referential structure as the perceptual and the mnemic situations.