Peirce
denies the power of introspection, suggesting that instead, all our internal
mental phenomena are understood via hypothesis based on our experience with the
external world (230). Despite this assertion, we can recognize that history has
shown us a genuine power of introspection, in the form of insights into the
human mind that could not have been arrived at via comparison to the external
world, in the thinking of David Hume, among others. Further, Peirce’s
motivation for denying such a power, ostensibly his concern that the power of
introspection leaves truth in the hands of the individual and is thus not
amenable to his method for the pursuit of truth, aimed at creating consensus
within the community of conscious observers, may have resulted from a mistaken
understanding of the divide that exists between the individual and the
community.
In
disputing Peirce’s assertion that there is no genuine power of introspection,
that all internal phenomena must be understood in terms of the external, we
need look no farther than Hume’s Treatise
on Human Understanding, in which Hume engages in introspection to generate
the foundations of his psychology. Discredited by modern psychologists for his
method of “arm chair psychology”, in which claims are derived solely from the
examination of ones own mind, Hume nonetheless shaped the way we have come to
understand our thoughts. The principles of association, the connecting strands
that unify conscious thought and guide the progression from one thought to
another, could have been derived through no other method than introspection,
yet maintain a measure of truth as Peirce conceives it. These principles, of
contiguity, resemblance and cause and effect, which serve to guide
consciousness, could not have been derived from the external world, the external
world lacking anything observable which functions in the way consciousness
itself does, forged as it is by the flow of thoughts. Hume’s principles of
association, founded in introspection, served all the same to generate a degree
of consensus within the community. These ideas shaped the progress of
psychology and the theoretical framework that individuals employ in making
sense of their own minds, in this way bringing about a truth from the method of
introspection alone.
With this
historical refutation in hand Peirce’s purpose in denying the power of
introspection comes under scrutiny. No one will deny that allowing for and
recognizing the validity of introspective inquiry gives priority in truth
claims to the individual, allowing them to make non-verifiable claims, in the
sense of the verifiability of the external world, about there own mind. This
privilege of introspection makes the individual’s claims less amenable to
Peirce’s understanding of the pursuit of truth, with its fundamental interest
in the consensus of the community (230). Peirce’s worry is that to allow
introspection would be to recognize as legitimate an area of inquiry that
cannot pursue truth via the method proposed. While introspection may pose
unique difficulties to this aspiration of community consensus, such
difficulties are not enough to discount the validity of such inquiries. This is
seen clearly, as even Peirce might recognize, in the consensus that has
historically been attained for truths derived from introspection.
Granting
that introspective truths cannot be verified in the sense of the external
world, in which multiple observers view identical phenomena, these internal
hypotheses are still amenable to community consensus, via a slightly more
nuanced route. In the pursuit of consensus, the individual’s thoughts and
feelings are not open to public verification. However, each individual member
of the community, in assessing the truth of certain observations and theories,
may turn inward to his or her own thoughts in search for verification. This
method, of introspection verified through the multiple introspections of the
community of individuals, has been the route by which consensus has
historically been gained in the exploration of internal phenomena. One need
look no further than the acceptance of Hume’s contributions to psychology,
truths which were evaluated, debated and agreed upon based on their ability to
hold up to scrutiny within the landscape of the thoughts of other individuals.
Peirce might further attempt to bar
introspective inquiry on grounds of his view of the real. Peirce understands
the real as the knowable (247). On this view, if something is inherently
unknowable, it is not to be considered real. By this same thinking, if we are
inherently unable to understand the error of a statement, to know its falsity,
than the statement can only be understood as true (248). In this way our
collective inability to know the individual’s state of consciousness makes that
individual’s consciousness unreal, containing no reality. Further, if we are to
allow a claim regarding an individual’s conscious experience to be accepted as
meaningful, our inability to know an error in their presentation or theory
makes this claim intrinsically true, wholly incompatible with refutation. In
Peirce’s understanding of reality we are left with a two-tiered account of the
impossibility of meaningful introspective inquiry.
This reasoning holds so long as we
accept the traditional understanding of the essentially private nature of
individual experience. By this classical account we as individuals are wholly
isolated from the experience of any other conscious entity, each of their
thoughts and feelings shrouded in mystery, cut off from our alien conscious
existences. Breaking from tradition, we might recognize a different
interpretation of the apparent isolation of each individual consciousness. We
may infer from much of our experience with other individuals that our minds are
not so clearly isolated as to prohibit meaningful insight, via the mediation of
our own thoughts, into the mind of another. If our thoughts and feelings are
similar enough to those of others then our own minds may function as an
acceptable substitute for access to the mind of another. If we understand our
own minds to be essentially akin to those of others, than their feelings, if
adequately described, can be known to us. If the thoughts of the individual are
capable of being known to us, than the individual consciousness may be
understood to be real, a boon to Peirce’s theory and a more palatable
conclusion. By the same token, of the congruency of like-minds, our examinations
of our own thoughts offer us a meaningful way to attend to the error in a proposed
theory of internal phenomena. When we read Freud or Hume’s psychological
writings, we may examine our own thoughts for such consistencies as these
authors note, or address their inaccuracies, thereby opening introspection to
fallibility, and granting it meaning in our discussions of truth.
Beyond the mere suggestion, we are not
without reasons for accepting this break from Cartesian individuality. A
substantive qualitative overlap between individual conscious experiences may be
inferred from our ability to communicate effectively, a phenomenon that seems
likely to occur only when our experiences have a marked similarity. The
historical mistake regarding the isolation of the individual can be ascribed to
mere contingent limitations in our language, in our ability to adequately
describe our internal states. This amounts to a circumstantial constraint,
rather than an intrinsic isolation between individuals, a distinction that
leaves Peirce’s denial of introspection unnecessary. Beyond communication, the
predictability and regularity of a group of individuals’ reactions, given the same
stimuli, offers behavioristic evidence for the overlap of experience.
Physiologically, the architectural, chemical and neurological similarities of
our organs of sense and conscious experience also suggest a significant overlap
in the experiences produced by these mechanisms, such as would provide for meaningful
interpersonal understanding. This probable similarity in human experience
across individual lines opens the doors to viewing individual consciousness as collectively
knowable. While none of these phenomena make an irrefutable proof that the
experiences of one individual can be understood in the mind of another, each
asserts the possibility and probability of this claim. If these arguments are
accepted, we are confronted with every reason to accept that the claims an
individual makes regarding their own mind may be both meaningfully understood
and examined for error by the community of introspective individuals. In this
way introspective inquiry may be viewed as real, susceptible to refutation, and
ultimately open to Peirce’s criteria for truth.
-Hegel.
To understand Peirce’s contribution one might notice that
this argument only attempts to reconcile the individual’s power of
introspection with Peirce’s desire for verifiability. Peirce’s ultimate concern
for verifiability is maintained. This method is not to be discounted, its claim
to truth is important to keep in mind in assessing the value of philosophical
claims, as a quick look at Hegel’s metaphysics illustrates. Any claim regarding
a metaphysical entity, such as Spirit, would, on Peirce’s account, be
meaningless, being unverifiable and ultimately unknowable. This take is
enlightening and may be evidenced when we examine the way an amorphous concept
such as Spirit can be used to substantiate both sides of a given argument.
Hegel employs the concept to validate the absolute authority of the monarchy,
while in my previous commentary Spirit was instrumental in justifying the
people’s right to oppose the monarchy*. This dual employment of Spirit, spawned
from its amorphous nature, suggests that such a claim as to the nature or
existence of Spirit lacks genuine meaning. Peirce’s criterion for meaning, that
a claim must be susceptible to verification, makes a substantial contribution to
our ability to discern the meaningful from the meaningless in philosophical
inquiry.
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