User:B.Sirota/sandbox/Cons2

Introspection and 'inner sense'
Among European thinkers up to the early 20th century, the relation between sensory perception—"the discovery, by means of the senses, of the existence and properties of the external world" —and some kind of 'inner sense' was a critical issue in the analysis of consciousness. Some ancient thinkers distinguished between lower-order perceptual abilities and higher-order rational abilities. Augustine held that living creatures perceive the world by way of separated physical senses plus an "inner sense" (closely related to Aristotle's ideas of "common sense" and "soul") by which perceptions are unified and the creatures 'perceive that they perceive', while humans alone have also the "rational faculties [that are] capable of genuine 'reflection' upon themselves." In medieval philosophy a variety of inner senses were discussed, while as of the 19th century one, namely 'introspection', has sufficed. To the extent that introspection was understood to be 'one's own mind' observing itself, the 'mental act' of observation was deemed to be of 'mental things' identified as the contents, states or processes of consciousness.

"[The] traditional view [...] defines consciousness as the direct awareness or immediate experience of the contents and processes of mind. The method of observing consciousness, so defined, is introspection..."

The 19th-century pursuit of an empirical science of the mind developed into the discipline of psychology, which came to be defined as "the science of consciousness". According to William James psychologists sought the "description and explanation of states of consciousness [which included] such things as sensations, desires, emotions, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, volitions, and the like." While researchers developed methods of objective experimentation, introspection remained an essential method used by psychological and philosophical phenomenologists, and in general terms, the data of introspective study included not only "thoughts and feelings" but also the "knowledge [they provided] of other things [such as] material objects and events, or other states of mind." For Bertrand Russell it was reasonable to think that the mind "might be partly constituted by data which are given to "inner sense"—that is, things which are the objects of awareness, such as images and feelings— ".

Problems
Consciousness may be "at once the most familiar and [also the] most mysterious aspect of our lives": while 'one's own mind' is supposedly known through introspection, one is somewhat aware of certain mental activities only, not all. In addition, conscious experience is difficult to describe because there is nothing in experience that experience can be compared to.

Most states of consciousness were (and are) by no means easy to identify or describe, much less to define or explain, and though they were deemed to be 'mental' states or processes, some (e.g. sensations and emotions) seemed also very physical. Early attempts at a purely materialist explanation of the Cartesian mind were based on a mechanical philosophy. After Darwin, however, a more biological explanation was sought, and in connection with evolutionary theory the problem of the  of consciousness arose: perhaps some earlier stages in the evolution of life had primitive forms of consciousness, but no theory could clearly define what such 'stages' could be, or could exclude the idea that some kind of consciousness was a fundamental property of all living things.

Early studies of the brain had discovered enough to allow the possibility that "all mental function could be related in one way or another to brain physiology" but if so, the dualistic problem to be solved was either how immaterial consciousness used the brain or whether consciousness (or any specific state) was somehow produced, or perhaps was determined, by physical processes in the brain, whether mechanical or chemical. Volition (personal control over one's thoughts and actions) was usually associated with dualistic concepts of free will.

Whether from a spiritualist or materialist position, the act of introspection is problematic: if it is the 'mind observing itself', the act is "analagous to perception", but happens without "an organ of perception"; how and why does the mind that seems to be non-physical have or produce "quasi-sensory experiences"?

Peter Hacker criticized the traditional intuitive idea of "an inner sense, which we then dub 'apperception', or 'introspection'": "...There is indeed such a thing as introspection—but it is not a form of perception and involves no 'looking into' one's mind. ... it involves reflecting on one's actions and character traits ... It is a route to self-knowledge, but also a highroad to self-deception. It is not exercised when one says that one has a headache ..." For Hacker, "reflecting on one's actions" is no kind of awareness but the use of reason, and "Consciousness, conceived as an inner sense with operations of the mind as its objects, is not a mark of the mental, but of thoroughgoing confusion."

Skeptics argue that naive intuitions about the existence and nature of consciousness are false, either because the concept is intrinsically incoherent, or because the intuitions are based in illusions. William James in 1892 expressed doubts. Analytic philosophy in the early 20th century generated critical analyses of 'mysteries' like "cartesianism ... what Gilbert Ryle called the doctrine of the ghost in the machine, a purely spiritual soul joined mysteriously with a purely material body." Ryle argued that the 'mystery' was only a mistaken way of speaking about a unified behavioral reality. He proposed that we speak not of minds, bodies, and the world, but of individuals, or persons, acting in the world.