ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with an aspect of subjective experience that is not usually covered by the various approaches to the subjective experience of affective episodes and feeling states addressed in this volume. The term “experience” has several referents. It not only refers to the phenomenology of hedonic and affective stimulation; an equally important and common reference is to epistemology. In ordinary language, “experience” constitutes empirical knowledge that affords the basis for valid judgments and expertise, informed decisions, and rational behavior. After all, in the French language, “experience” means “experiment,” which is the prototype of a systematic, scientific approach to problem solving. In emphasizing this epistemic aspect of experience, the present article addresses an important function of metacognitive intelligence, namely, the function of truth monitoring.
