Abstract
Introspection is considered a key method for exploring the workings of the psyche because psychical phenomena are accessible only by the individual him or herself. But this epistemological concept, despite its importance, remained unclear and contentious. Its scientificity is often questioned, but still introspective findings from psychophysics are widely accepted as the ultimate proof of the quantifiability of psychical phenomena. Not everything going on in individuals’ minds is considered introspection, but clear criteria that qualify explorations as introspective are still missing. This research applies the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) to metatheoretically define the peculiarities of psychical phenomena of which various kinds are differentiated and to derive therefrom basic methodological principles and criteria applicable to any investigation. Building on these foundations, the TPS-Paradigm introduces the concepts of introquestion versus extroquestion and reveals that introspection cannot be clearly differentiated from extrospection and that psychophysical experiments and some first-person perspective methods are not introspective as often assumed. The chapter explores the challenges that arise from the fact that psychical phenomena can be explored only indirectly through individuals’ behavioural and semiotic externalisations and scrutinises what, when, where and how to externalise in introquestive explorations. The basic principles and criteria elaborated also allow for determining which kind of psychical phenomenon can be explored by using which kind of method for establishing an appropriate phenomenon–methodology match.
Author biography
Jana Uher is a Senior Research Fellow at The London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her PhD from Free University Berlin in 2009, where she headed the group Comparative Differential and Personality Psychology from 2010–2013, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). In 2013, Jana Uher was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship by the European Commission. Her research is transdisciplinary, concentrating on philosophy-of-science issues of psychological and behavioral research on individuals from culture- and species-comprehensive perspectives. She employs a broad portfolio of methods in studies with human children and adults with different sociocultural backgrounds and more than ten different nonhuman species, in particular primates. Jana Uher has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (2003–2005) and has also been a visiting scholar at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy (ISTC-CNR) in Rome (2011–2013).
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Notes
- 1.
The TPS-Paradigm uses the term psychical rather than psychological because “events, processes and structures that are properly called psychical do not become psychological until they have been operated upon in some way by the science of psychology” (Adams and Zener in Lewin 1935, p. vii).
- 2.
The presuppositions that the TPS-Paradigm makes about the three metatheoretical properties and the distinctions between various kinds of phenomena need not be consensually shared by all scientists. Scientists who do not agree or who agree only partially with these presuppositions must develop metatheoretical and methodological concepts other than the ones that are explored in this research, thus precluding direct comparisons (for details, see Uher 2015a, d).
- 3.
The term “non-physical” is put in quotation marks because it denotes properties that are not simply contrasted against the physical but are complementary instead (see below; Uher 2015a).
- 4.
In the TPS-Paradigm, the term phenomenon denotes anything that is or can be (technically) made perceptible and/or that can be conceived by humans. This differs from various historical thought traditions in which phenomena are conceived of as mere sensory perceptions and are differentiated from non-sensual concepts (sometimes called noumena; e.g. Kant 1781; for details, see Uher 2015d).
- 5.
For a differentiation to the concepts of internalism versus externalism, see the Section “Indirect Exploration Through Individuals’ Behavioural and Semiotic Externalisations”.
- 6.
Given these non-spatial properties, the entirety of psychical phenomena cannot be conceived of as a material physical entity that could be directly perceived as is possible for individuals’ bodies; thus, notions of “the psyche” in the TPS-Paradigm cannot and do not imply reification as a concrete entity.
- 7.
Given that complex organismal systems function as organised wholes, the so-called principle of emergence denotes that their properties cannot be deduced from the knowledge of the constituting elements and their interrelations. When such systems are assembled from their elements, new characteristics of the whole emerge, and these could not have been predicted from knowledge of their constituents and the interrelations between them. The whole has different properties, structures and functionings (e.g. Rothschuh 1963; Uher 2015a, d; Wundt 1863).
- 8.
Sensations are physiological processes, operating at the border from the physical to the psychical into which they become processed as perceptions. Sensory phenomena enable conversions of information from external physical events into internal psychical events. Importantly, the patterns according to which sensations are converted into percepts are not fixed and sensations are not the only ways in which perceptions are generated (Gibson 1967; for details, see Uher 2015d).
- 9.
Wundt (1874) already emphasised that the possibilities for quantification are restricted to simple psychical phenomena accessible by psychophysical experimentation and that such possibilities are not given for higher and complex psychical phenomena for the exploration of which he developed his comprehensive research programme of cultural–historical psychology (German: Völkerpsychologie).
- 10.
Previously also called the one-sided gap of the mind–environment connection (Uher 2013).
- 11.
The term mediation refers to the Latin mediare, to be in the middle.
- 12.
The TPS-Paradigm conceives of functions as temporal interrelations that regularly occur between particular kinds of phenomena, events or properties—thus, as established effects (derived from the Latin effectus for “worked out, brought about, accomplished”). Functions thus defined imply neither purpose nor intention because teleological properties presuppose that possible prospective outcomes are simulated and evaluated on the basis of a posteriori analyses of experiences made in the past, which is possible only for psychical phenomena (Uher 2015d). Moreover, functions denote not only causal connections of various kind (Kausal-Zusammenhänge) but also compositional connections (Gefüge-Zusammenhänge) in which the interacting elements co-occur in coordinated ways and match and cooperate with one another such that the entirety of their joint interactions results in complexes and functions of higher organisation (Rothschuh 1963; Uher 2015a, c, e).
- 13.
The corresponding German terms are bewusstseinspflichtig and bewusstseinsfähig (Hacker 1986).
- 14.
A situation is defined in the TPS-Paradigm as the particular constellation of the internal and external events that are present in a given moment and that the individual can therefore directly perceive, consciously or not (Uher 2015a).
- 15.
Experiencings also occur during some episodes of sleep (e.g. dream experiencing).
- 16.
The German term Aktualgenese, coined by Gestaltpsychologists for perceptual processes, is derived from the Latin actualis for in action, operative. This German term refers more explicitly to the time-bound properties of the phenomena studied than the corresponding English term microgenesis, which refers to the smallest, moment-by-moment transformative occurrences of continuous developmental processes (Diriwächter and Valsiner 2008).
- 17.
Of course, what individuals can extroquestively access and what cameras can technically capture is necessarily not exactly the same. Audiovisual cameras may be less or even more sensitive to audiovisual events, but are generally insensitive to physical events of other kind (e.g. of smells, temperature, humidity, air pressure) that individuals can extroquestively access.
- 18.
Original wording “dem Ausdruck der Gedanken eine Grenze ziehen”—literally translated “to draw a limit to the expression of thoughts” (Wittgenstein 1922, Preface).
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The author acknowledges funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG; UH249/1-1). This chapter was previously entitled “Exploring individuals and the workings of their minds: Methodological principles derived from the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals”.
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Uher, J. (2016). Exploring the Workings of the Psyche: Metatheoretical and Methodological Foundations. In: Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Sato, T., Dazzani, V. (eds) Psychology as the Science of Human Being. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21094-0_18
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