Introspection and the phenomenology of free will: Problems and prospects

Journal of Consciousness Studies 18 (1):180-205 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Inspired and informed by the work of Russ Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel in their 'Describing Inner Experience', we do two things in this commentary. First, we discuss the degree of reliability that introspective methods might be expected to deliver across a range of types of experience. Second, we explore the phenomenology of agency as it bears on the topic of free will. We pose a number of poten-tial problems for attempts to use introspective methods to answer var-ious questions about the phenomenology of free-will experience -- questions such as this: does such experience have metaphysical-liber-tarian satisfaction conditions? We then discuss the prospects for over-coming some of these problems via approaches such as Hurlburt's DES methodology, the so-called 'talk aloud' protocol, and forms of abduction that combine introspection with non-introspection-based forms of evidence

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 92,497

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Prolegomena to a future phenomenology of morals.Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons - 2008 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (1):115-131.
Can we know that we have free will by introspection?Keith Lehrer - 1960 - Journal of Philosophy 57 (March):145-156.
Introspection and Free Will.Stewart E. Kelly - 1991 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 39 (1):155-164.
Phenomenal Variability and Introspective Reliability.Jakob Hohwy - 2011 - Mind and Language 26 (3):261-286.
Van Inwagen on introspected freedom.Jean-Baptiste Guillon - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (3):645-663.
The Prospects for the Free Will Defence.Bruce Langtry - 2010 - Faith and Philosophy 27 (2):142-152.
The phenomenology of free will.Eddy Nahmias, Stephen G. Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer & Jason Turner - 2004 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8):162-179.
On the unreliability of introspection.Declan Smithies - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):1177-1186.
Introspection in science.Morten Overgaard - 2006 - Consciousness and Cognition 15 (4):629-633.
The free-will controversy.Ledger Wood - 1941 - Philosophy 16 (October):386-397.
Introspection and its objects.Denis G. Arnold - 1997 - Journal of Philosophical Research 22 (April):87-94.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-10-27

Downloads
88 (#194,791)

6 months
18 (#146,648)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Terry Horgan
University of Arizona
Mark Timmons
University of Arizona

Citations of this work

Just Do It: Schopenhauer and Peirce on the Immediacy of Agency.Marc Champagne - 2014 - Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 18 (2):209-232.
Experience, Metaphysics, and Cognitive Science.L. A. Paul - 2016 - In Wesley Buckwalter & Justin Sytsma (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 419-433.
On a Neglected Aspect of Agentive Experience.Andrew Sims - 2019 - Philosophia 47 (4):1313-1330.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references