INTROSPECTION (from Lat. in trogpiccrc, to look within, from intro, within + gpiecrc, to look: connected with Gk. Cli17TtGeti(, skeptcsthai, pa•i, to look, 011G. spch4n, Ger. .spahen, to spy). The specific method of psychology. as observation or inspection is the specific method of physical science; also termed SELF-OBSERVA•ION or • 1 N N ER RECEPTION.' 'file three names are characteristic of three different attitudes toward the study of mental phenomena, which we may term the rationalistic. the em pirical, and the experimental. 111 Kant de dared that a science of mind is impossible. for the reason, among others, that the method of psychology is impracticable: self-observation im plies a change of the very facts which we desire to observe. If self-observation were, literally, the method of psychology, Kant's objection would lie valid. if. then. psychology were forced to rely on self-observation. there could be no ascer tainment of mental uniformities, no science of mind; the more attentive the observer. and the more systematic his use of the method. the scantier would be his harvest of facts; specula tion W011111 have free play. Hence the empirical school (2) substituted for self-observation the method--or, rather, the unmethodical employ ment—of inner perception ( unnerve irahrneh tannif). Observation is planned and prepared for: perception, the noting of events and condi tions as they appear. is a matter of happy acei dent. Now inner states and processes can be perceived or noted as well as outer: there is no self-contradiction involved in the phrase 'inner pereeption:' but. at the same time. the loss of the plan and system implied by the term 'obser vation' is a serious handicap to a science. and must lead to inadequaey both of description and of theory. We find, accordingly, that the intro spection or inner perception of the empirical psychologists has no claim to rank as a true scientific method. It makes the cardinal mistake of considering merely the most obvious aspect of mind—its cognitive function; it views mental processes always through the glass of meaning. of logical import: it tells us what mental events stand for, but not what till'y :Ill, 1 t is clear that we should gain little knowledge of the anatomy of our bodies by it supertivial cata loguing of the bodily functions. as they are ap parent in the o•eurrenees of eNery•ilay life; that we might go sadly astray, in our attempt to translate function into the unknown language of structure. The same thing holds of mind. as interpreted by the method of inner per ception. int In the tirst place, the method leads to an overemphasis of what dames lias called the 'substantive' factors in the stream of thought, and to an underempliasis of the 'transitive' parts. We read of images and ideas and representations; butt the 'fringes' if these psychical entities. the elusive and it essential processes which Spencer (still in logical terms) has denominated 'feelings of relation.' are left entirely out of account. The result of this error is that mind is pictured as if composed of discrete and sharply separable terms (dm. 'sensations' or 'ideas' which corre
spond to the simplest 'bits of knowledge'), in stead of being presented as what it really is, a shifting continuum. a tangle of ever-moving and ever-changing processes. (b) A second mistake to which inner perception is liable is that whiell has been called per Hence the "psyeluologist's fallacy.' Flie psyeholiwist is tempted to read himself, his own knowledge and attitude, into the menial process or group of mental proces-es which he is considering. Instead of taking the mental stuff as it is, in the incompleteness and abstractness which are eonditioned upon its de tachment from context• he rounds it off and supplements it, by his outside knowledge of this context. Ile is thus tempted into a twofold error. On the one hand—misled by the poverty of language, which ordinarily names a percep. bolt or idea by naming the object to which it refers. no matter what the mode or character of this reference may be—lie is easily brought. "to suppose that the thought. which is of the object, knows it in the same way in which he knows it, although this is often very far from being the ease." On the other hand. since he is himself familiar with all the relations in which the given mental process stands, he is apt to read an awareness of these relations into the process; he makes the process conscious of ilself as he is conscious of it. The result is that we are fur nished nit with a description, but with a logical construction of mind; while. as there is no appeal from the logical construction to the facts, em pirical psychology is full of quasi-logical eon troversies. that are not. only long drawn out, hut are in the nature of things incapable- of psycho logical termination.
(3) We arrive at introspection proper only when we reach the point at •hielt the exp•ri mental method is introdueed into psychology-. (Sec PSYCHOLOGY. EXPER NI EN T.% This does not mean that there was no valid introspection before there was experiment: men are often better than their methods. Nor does it mean that all the results of experimental research are the fruits of an unimpeaehable introspection; methods may be better than the men who use them. It means that, with the; advent of experi mental control, psychology was able to combine the attitude of inner perception with the plan and system of self-observation; and that this science thus acquired a method which is as ac curate and reliable in principle as arc the meth ods of the physieal sciences. Experiment enables us so to regulate external conditions that a de terminate mental occurrence may he induced at a determinate moment of time; it enables us, fur ther, to prevent any modifieation of conscious ness save by the occurrence under investigation. Given a state of coneentrated attention (q.v.) on the part of the observer. the requisite degree of practice, a retentive memory (q.v.), and an adequate command of language wherewith to report the experience (see DISCRIMINATION, SENSIBLE)—and there is no reason why a psycho logical introspection may not be as exact as an observation in chemistry or physics.