a) Classic Introspection

With a firm grasp of the distinction between mere experience and reflection, we are able to explicate what the classic introspectionist psychologists meant by introspection. I shall start with three examples of the inspection of mental things other than mental acts.

(1) Someone is shown an apple. She is instructed to describe what she sees. She recognizes the object before her as an apple. She states that it is light green. Next, she is asked to describe not the perceptual object, but rather her visual sense-impression of the apple. What she is asked to do is, roughly, to forget that there is a green apple before her and to concentrate instead on her visual sensation. If she understands these instructions and if she has been trained to follow them, she will be inspecting her visual sensation.

(2) Assume that someone is instructed to imagine a mermaid, and that there occurs on this occasion the mental image of a mermaid. Then he is asked to concentrate on this image and to describe certain features of it, for example, whether or not it is colored and if so, what color the mermaid’s hair is. In order to furnish this description, the person must inspect the mental image of the mermaid.

(3) Lastly, suppose that someone is in the process of composing an important letter to his best friend. While he is writing the letter, he feels a slight pain in his abdomen. After the letter is finished, having gotten worried about the persistent pain, he consults his wife, who happens to be a physician. She asks him to localize the pain and describe it in detail. He now realizes that the pain is “stabbing” rather than “dull and continuous.” His description presupposes that he inspects the pain carefully.

These three examples, merely outlined here, allow us to make some general observations about the nature of inspection.

First. In each example, someone’s attention was concentrated on the object of inspection. I have already described this feature and explained the nature of attention. According to this explanation, the object inspected is in each case the object of a mental act which belongs to the conscious state of the person.

Second. The three examples were so chosen that in each case inspection was preceded by a conscious intention to inspect. In each case, the person had, as the psychologists say, a set to inspect (cf., for example, G. E. Mueller’s “Zur Analyse der Gedaechtnistaetigkeit und des Vorstellungsverlaufs,” and J. J. Gibson, “A Critical Review of the Concept of Set in Contemporary Experimental Psychology”). However, inspection can also occur without a prior set to inspect. For example, a person may pay attention to a pain when it suddenly gets worse, and he may do so without any prior intention to inspect his pain more closely.

Third. The intention to inspect occurred in our examples as a consequence of a specific task. [Concerning the importance of tasks for introspection see, for example, H. J. Watt, “Experimentelle Beitraege zu einer Theorie des Denkens,” and O. Selz’s article in Archiv fuer die gesamte Psychologie, 27 (1913): 367-80.] Such a task usually has three effects. It brings about a shift in mental set. It brings about a shift in conscious states, for example, from perceiving an apple to inspecting a sense-impression, or from imagining a mermaid to inspecting the image. And it determines what particular things or features of things are to be inspected and described.

Fourth. In the description of the first example, I mentioned that the person in question has to be trained to follow the instructions. Some inspective conscious states are notoriously hard to induce and even harder to maintain. In ordinary life, we perceive things, imagine things, and feel things rather than scrutinize sensations, images, and pains. And even if inspection occurs in ordinary life, it usually lasts only for brief periods. What we find most often, even in controlled experimental situations, is a rapid shift back and forth between inspective and non-inspective conscious states.

Fifth. What is inspected in the three situations is not the seeing of an apple, the imagining of a mermaid, or the feeling of a pain, but rather such things as sense-impressions, images, and feelings. The objects of inspection are not mental acts, but what I shall call for the moment “mental contents.”

Return to our first example: the perception of an apple followed by the inspection of a visual sensation. Does the person inspect her conscious state of perceiving the apple when she inspects the visual sense-impression caused by the apple? Obviously not. At first, her conscious state contains, among other things, an act of perception and a visual sensation. But at that moment she is not introspecting her conscious state, but is perceiving the apple. When she shifts from perceiving the apple to inspecting her sensation, her conscious state contains an act of reflecting on the sensation. She now experiences not an act of perception, but an act of reflecting. In this later situation, there no longer occurs an act of seeing the apple. This clearly shows that the inspection of sense-impressions is not the same as the inspection of conscious states of perceiving. Even if one were to inspect one’s sense-impressions and, in addition, all kinds of kinesthetic sensations, images, feelings, and the like, one would not be inspecting a conscious state of perceiving. Yet, the classic theory of introspection claims that one does just that. According to this theory, a conscious state is said to be analyzed into its introspective elements, if all of the mental contents have been listed which can be discerned after a shift from the original conscious state to one of inspection. A conscious process is said to be analyzed if all of the mental contents have been listed which can be made out during introspective intervals. In either case, the original conscious state or process is said to consist of the mental contents listed. This conception of introspection simply denies the existence of mental acts. The mind of the classic introspectionist consists of nothing but sensations, images, and feelings.

According to the classical notion of introspection, therefore, introspection of conscious states and processes can be nothing more than the inspection of mental contents. To claim that one can introspect one’s conscious states and processes is to claim merely that one can inspect mental contents after a shift has taken place from a certain conscious state to one of reflecting on mental contents. In this sense of the term, introspection is certainly possible. But notice how far this sense strays from what one expects from the meaning of the term. In the case of perception, for example, what is inspected by means of this kind of introspection is neither the perceptual conscious state when it occurs, nor the act of perceiving after the introspective shift has taken place, but it is merely the mental contents which, before the shift, were part of the conscious state.

b) Systematic Introspection

Classic introspection is possible. But what about the systematic introspection of conscious processes, that is, of a temporal series of conscious states? I shall again give three examples.

(1) The subject of a psychological experiment has been trained to search for a certain associated word whenever he hears a particular stimulus word. Hearing the stimulus word, searching for the associated word, and uttering the word constitute what may be called “the natural conscious process” in this situation. Such a natural conscious process is simply a process that is neither brought about nor influenced by a mental set to introspect. After a while, the subject is told to describe what goes on in his mind while he is searching for the appropriate associated word. He is to report, in other words, on his mental contents. If he understands the instructions and if he has been trained to follow them, the subject will now be set to inspect as soon as the next stimulus word appears. For a moment, he will search for the associated word. But then, as a consequence of his instructions, a shift in conscious states will occur, and he will inspect mental contents. After another moment, the subject will again turn to the task of finding the associated word. And so on. This procedure will therefore have some or all of the following effects on the natural conscious process of finding the associated word: (a) certain natural conscious states either will not occur at all, or (b) they will occur later than usual, or (c) they will not be noticed as clearly as usual. This shows how a set to introspect interferes with a natural conscious process, and since systematic introspection cannot be achieved without such a set, it shows how difficult if not impossible it is to introspect natural conscious processes systematically.

(2) Suppose that the subject frequently catches himself having a certain thought when he hears a particular stimulus word. He is therefore instructed to watch himself carefully on later trials to see whether or not the particular word evokes that particular thought. The next time he hears the word, he is in a very curious position. It seems to be entirely up to him whether or not he thinks that thought. And irrespective of what he finally does, he cannot help viewing whatever he does as being somehow influenced by a factor which does not normally belong to the situation.

(3) Finally, let us suppose that the subject considers several ways of going about searching for the associated word, before he is presented with the first stimulus word, but after he has been instructed to introspect. When the first stimulus word appears, he follows one of these contemplated methods, even though he would not have chosen this particular method without the instruction to introspect. As a result of the set to introspect, a conscious process occurs that is different from the one that would normally take place.

The first example shows that a set to introspect interrupts a natural conscious process by introspective intervals. And it is clear from the other two examples that it may lead to conscious processes other than those which would take place without a set to introspect. This kind of influence led many psychologists to the conclusion that the systematic introspection of natural conscious processes is impossible (see, for example, A. Messer, “Experimentell-psychologische Untersuchungen ueber das Denken,” p. 9; and G. E. Mueller and F. Schumann, “Experimentelle Beitraege zur Untersuchung des Gedaechtnisses” p. 306). But they also noted that something like introspection can occur without such a set. This is the reason why I distinguish between introspection and systematic introspection.

Sometimes, when we remember something, we notice suddenly that we have a more or less vivid memory image. In such cases, there occurs a sudden unintended shift in conscious states. Such an unintended shift also occurs when we catch ourselves daydreaming or thinking of Paris. Some psychologists held that a trustworthy description of introspective contents can only be given if the subject experiences such a sudden unintended shift without any previous intention to introspect. They argued that only on these occasions can one be sure that the natural conscious process was not influenced or disturbed by a set to inspect mental contents. [see, for example, Mueller, p. 69, and an article by J. I. Volkelt in Zeitschriftfuer Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 90 (1887)]. Be that as it may, it is true that one can catch oneself experiencing certain conscious states. Ryle made much of the fact that we can also catch ourselves scratching and that, therefore, what we catch ourselves in need not be a mental process (G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p. 166). Of course it need not be mental. But I doubt that the psychologists who thought that reliable introspective reports are only possible in cases where one catches oneself undergoing a certain conscious process believed that catching oneself is a criterion for the mental nature of what one catches oneself doing. Rather, what they were talking about was a sudden unintended shift in conscious states. Such a shift occurs even in the case of catching oneself scratching rather than, say, daydreaming. When you suddenly notice that you have been scratching yourself behind the ear, your conscious state has changed. Catching oneself is a “mark of the mental,” of the mental which is so distasteful to Ryle, not because what one catches oneself in has to be mental, but because catching oneself is itself a mental phenomenon. It is a sudden shift in conscious states.

Let me sum up some of our results. We saw that one can undoubtedly inspect mental contents, that is, such mental things as sensations, images, pains, and the like. We also saw that one can therefore “introspect” conscious states and processes. As the term was used, the introspection of a conscious state consists of the inspection of its mental contents. But we noted that there are good reasons why we may doubt that one can systematically introspect natural conscious processes without disturbing them one way or another. It must be emphasized here that most introspective psychologists were well aware of these features and limitations of their method. And it must also be stressed that much of the criticism of the program of introspective psychology fails to appreciate the distinctions we have drawn between inspection, introspection, and systematic introspection. Only if one fails to make these distinctions will one be tempted to deny the possibility of any kind of introspection. But if one makes them, then it becomes obvious why introspective psychologists did so well in some fields of inquiry and so poorly in others.

c) Reflection on Mental Acts

Classic introspection consists of the inspection of mental contents. Mental acts simply do not exist for the classic introspectionist. It was a psychological revolution when the Wuerzburg School discovered “imageless thought.” Can you conceive of a mind without acts of perceiving, desiring, imagining, remembering, without acts of love, without questions, etc.? How could any reasonable psychologist have believed in such a mind? But, then, to put things in the proper perspective, we must also remember the mind of Hume, consisting of nothing but impressions and ideas. And, of course, some contemporary philosophers have no minds at all.

Is introspection of mental acts possible? One thing is clear: according to our analysis, such introspection cannot mean that an act is its own object. But this is not, at any rate, what happens when we inspect our fears and desires, our hopes and doubts. Introspection of mental acts consists of the inspection of mental acts. Such an inspection requires that its object be the object of attention. And to be an object of attention, as we have seen, is to be an object before the mind. This means that one must experience a mental act whose object is the inspected mental act. Put differently, there must occur in the conscious state a mental act which intends the act that is inspected. From our analysis it follows that one cannot inspect one’s conscious states; for conscious states are not their own objects.

You see that there are two red pencils on the desk before you. According to our view, you experience a conscious state which, among other things, contains certain sense-impressions and an act of seeing. What you pay attention to, through the act of seeing, are not the contents of your conscious state, but rather the two red pencils on the desk. Now, how would one go about switching from paying attention to the pencils to paying attention to one’s conscious state? It is obvious that as soon as one tries to pay attention to one’s conscious state of seeing the pencils, one is no longer in this conscious state, one no longer perceives the pencils. And this shows that, in general, any attempt to inspect a conscious state inevitably destroys the conscious state. One cannot inspect the conscious state which one experiences, because in order to inspect it one would have to experience quite a different conscious state.

We cannot inspect an act of seeing when we experience it, when it is part of the conscious state. But can we not switch from seeing something to paying attention to our seeing something? Of course we can. But now another difficulty arises. A mental act of seeing is not something that lasts for a while. Properly and phenomenally speaking, it has no duration at all. You cannot be half-way through seeing the two red pencils on your desk. As soon as you see that there are these two pencils on the desk, you have seen it. And what holds for an act of seeing holds for all perceptual acts. More than that, it holds for all mental acts. Therefore, one cannot really switch one’s attention to a mental act when one experiences it; for as soon as one experiences it, it is gone. But you can pay attention to it by remembering it. When you remember that a little while ago you saw two red pencils on your desk, the previous act of seeing is an object of your conscious state, not a part of it. It is before the mind, through the remembering. What is experienced is not the act of seeing, but the act of remembering, as shown in figure 10.

Figure 10

Thus we can pay attention to mental acts by remembering them.

But memory is not the only way in which we can pay attention to mental acts. There is also reflection. It seems to me that when you are aware that you just saw two red pencils on your desk, you do not, properly speaking, remember your seeing. You do not remember it in the way in which you remember a desire you had two years ago. There is, in my opinion, an immediacy to our “knowing what goes on in our minds” when it goes on which is quite different from memory. This “immediacy” is characteristic of what I have called an act of reflection. In short, I think that there are two quite different kinds of mental acts, memory and reflection, and that by means of reflection, we can constantly and immediately monitor what goes on in our conscious states. By reflection, we can pay attention to mental contents that last, as well as to mental acts that do not. I chose the term ‘reflection’ for this unique mental act because of Locke’s terminology: “By reflection then, in the following part of this discourse, I would be understood to mean, that notice which the mind takes of its own operations, and the manner of them, by reason whereof there come to be ideas of these operations in the understanding” (J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter 1, 2).

d) A Word about Emotions and Moods

Mental acts, I said, have no phenomenal duration; they do not last for some time. How does this fact agree with the view that fear, for example, is a mental act?

There is a woman who for several hours lives in terrible fear that her neighbor will break into her house and shoot her. At one point, at the beginning of this time period, she experiences an act of fear that her neighbor will break into her house and shoot her. Afterwards, numerous other mental acts occur. She thinks of locking all her doors; she remembers a movie in which a person was in a similar situation; she wishes she could move the heavy dining room table against the door; she imagines what it would be like to be shot; she regrets having sent her husband out to shop for a new lawnmower; she wonders what kind of gun her neighbor may actually use when he shoots her; she hopes it will not be a shotgun; and so on. This, of course, is the stuff exciting movies are made from. The point I wish to make is that the act of fearing is not present all of the time while she is afraid. It only occurs sporadically, punctuating her fear, but not constituting it. Yet, the woman is obviously afraid all that time. Thus there are two facts which are undeniable. Firstly, mental acts of being afraid occur only intermittently in this situation. Secondly, the woman is afraid for hours on end.

I think that these facts call for a distinction between acts of fearing, on the one hand, and the emotional state of fear, on the other. While the acts occur only sporadically, the emotional state lasts uninterruptedly for a certain length of time. The emotional state of fear, as I shall use the expression, is not itself a mental act; it has no object. This emotional state can be experienced even at times when the act of fearing is not present. But the emotional state gets its “direction” from the mental act. The mental act makes this emotion a fear of being shot rather than, say, a fear of dying of cancer. Now, this distinction between the act of fearing and the emotional state of fear leads to a distinction between the introspection of the act and the introspection of the emotional state. The mental act of fearing to be shot can be remembered and it can be the object of reflection. Years later, the woman may remember those horrible hours and her fear of being shot by her neighbor. But she can also tell you at the time of her ordeal what it is she is afraid of: she can reflect on the mental act of fear which she just experienced. On the other hand, the emotional state of fear lasts for hours and can be inspected during that time. She experiences this emotional state and can intermittently reflect on it. The crucial difference between the reflection on the act of fear and the reflection on the emotional state is that the state lasts, while the act does not. As a consequence, the state can be inspected when it is present, while the act cannot. More accurately, the emotional state can be inspected while it is experienced, but the act cannot.

But even this way of describing the situation is not quite accurate. It follows from our analysis that the emotional state is not a part of the conscious state when it is inspected; it is the object of an act of reflection, and it is this act which is part of the conscious state. In other words, it follows from our analysis that the emotional state is not experienced when it is inspected; rather, the act of reflection is experienced. Yet, when we reflect on a present emotion, the emotion is not “gone”; it has not “disappeared from the mind”; it is still present. Thus we have to improve on our picture of what is “in the mind” at a given time. A mind, we realize, consists not only of an experience and what is experienced, the conscious state, but, under certain circumstances, also of what is reflected upon. To use our previous suggestive terminology, what is before the mind at a given time, the emotional state when reflected upon, can be part of that mind. What this means is, roughly speaking, that the emotion is still there when reflection ceases. The unfortunate woman of our example experiences the emotion of fear. Then, at a certain moment, she pays attention to it rather than to what she fears. She now reflects on her emotion. What she experiences is the act of reflection, not the emotion. But a moment later, she switches again to an unreflective attitude, and now once again she experiences the emotion. The emotion, we say, did not disappear while she reflected upon it; it was there and it is still there.

The picture of introspection which has so far emerged, I admit, is rather complicated. Perhaps this is another reason why so many have despaired of achieving for the mind what so clearly has been achieved for the world around us, namely, a careful and measured description of the phenomena. But the truth of our analysis can only be tested if we are willing to consider additional problems in the light of it.

If I am correct, then an “emotion” like fear or jealousy is really a complex phenomenon: it consists of an act as well as the emotional state. The act of fearing has an intentional object. One cannot fear, as Brentano would say, without fearing something. The emotional state, on the other hand, has no intentional object. It gets its object through the corresponding act. Furthermore, the act of fearing, like an act of seeing or an act of desiring, has no duration. It appears and is gone before one can interrupt it. The emotional state, on the other hand, lasts for some time. Some emotions may last for minutes; others, for hours. During all this time, the emotion is punctuated and reinforced by the corresponding act which gave birth to it and keeps it alive. Just as the fear is about to disappear, the act is experienced again, and the emotion gets a new lease on life. On another occasion, one cannot get rid of the emotional state, try as one may. No distraction will work. Quite to the contrary, one must compulsively dwell on one’s jealousy, with the result that it gets worse as time goes on. Of course, the act of fearing which occurs intermittently may not always have the same object. With one fear, other fears are created. A whole network of related fears may thus give sustenance to the emotional state.

While the emotion lasts, I said, one can inspect it, just as one can inspect a memory image or a sensation. But I do not wish to imply that the inspection of an emotion has no influence on the emotion. It is obvious, for example, that one’s anger may decrease if one takes a step back and takes a good look at it. By reflecting on one’s anger, one puts some distance between oneself and the object of one’s anger. The object of one’s anger is no longer before one’s mind. One lives, not in the object of one’s anger, but in the anger itself. Thus there are emotions which can be influenced by acts of reflection, which can be gotten rid of by reflection; and there are emotions which resist all attempts to extinguish them by putting them into perspective. Anger is of the first kind, jealousy, of the second. Jealousy, as the German pun has it, “ist eine Leidenschaft, die mit Eifer sucht, was Leiden schaft.”

A mood is in some respects like an emotion: it lasts for some time, and it colors all the ingredients of the mind. But in contrast to an emotion, it lacks the direction-giving mental act. When one is depressed, one is not depressed about something in particular; and when one is elated and happy, one is just happy in general. Like a strong emotion, a mood pervades one’s mental life. The mental contents of one’s conscious state are colored by it. If we had to depict a mood in our by now familiar diagram, we would have to color the conscious state a certain shade of grey; dark grey, or even black, for the bleaker moods; light grey or white for the happier moods. A mood, like an emotion, is not a separate constituent of the conscious state, like a sensation or an image, but is something that determines the quality of one’s conscious state. (The distinction between emotions and moods has been especially well described by Otto Friedrich Bollnow in Das Wesen der Stimmungen.)

I claimed that a mood, in distinction to an emotion, has no act that gives it a direction toward an object. However, this does not mean that a mood may not be triggered by a specific experience or a certain thought. You may get depressed, for example, when reminded of your mortality by the death of a close friend. But even though your depression is caused by this reminder, your mortality is not its object. You may be afraid of dying, but you are not depressed about it. Of course, there are reasons why you are depressed, and part of the reason is that you thought about your friend’s sudden death. But there are no “objects” of depression, as there are “objects” of mental acts.

Moods are even harder to change than emotions. It is well known that a depressed person cannot change her state by thinking cheerful thoughts, or by remembering better times, or by being assured that things are not all that gloomy. In order to come out of a depression, one must change one’s behavior, rather than one’s conscious state. The depressed person cannot talk herself into getting out of bed, taking a shower, having breakfast, and going to class. Someone else may force her to do these things, literally dragging her out of bed, etc.; and lo and behold, after breakfast, the depression is gone. Another day can be faced. Of course, the same result can be achieved through the miracles of chemistry. And there are depressions which cannot be treated any other way.

What I have said about emotions and moods, I am afraid, is standard fare and hardly controversial. Furthermore, novelists have given us detailed and profound descriptions of these mental phenomena. But I have had a philosophical motive. I wish to make a philosophical point in the next section. This point touches on the question of whether or not anxiety is a mood. I shall argue that the common view that anxiety is a mood is mistaken.

I think that we must distinguish between “feelings,” “emotions,” and “moods.” Feelings are the various degrees and variations of pain and pleasure. Emotions like fear, anger, envy, jealousy, etc., are characterized by consisting both of a mental act, which gives a “direction” to the emotion, and the emotion proper (the emotional state) which lasts for some time. Moods, finally, are the various degrees of happiness and sadness, ranging from ecstasy to deep depression. In distinction from emotions, they have no direction-giving mental acts. These are not all the differences between feelings, emotions, and moods, but they may serve to indicate a broad distinction among these three kinds of mental phenomena.