Developing Dark Pessimism Towards the Justificatory Role of Introspective Reports

Erkenntnis https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-019-00156-9 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Developing Dark Pessimism Towards the Justificatory Role of Introspective Reports Elizabeth Irvine1 Received: 10 May 2018 / Accepted: 22 July 2019 © The Author(s) 2019 Abstract This paper argues for a position of ‘dark pessimism’ towards introspective reports playing a strong justificatory role in consciousness science, based on the application of frameworks and concepts of measurement. I first show that treating introspective reports as measurements fits well within current discussions of the reliability of introspection, and argue that introspective reports must satisfy at least a minimal definition of measurement in order to play a justificatory role in consciousness science. I then show how treating introspective reports as measurements makes it possible to identify the foundational methodological problems that underlie much of the current philosophical and scientific debate about the status of introspective evidence in studying consciousness. I argue that these problems prevent introspective reports from playing a strong justificatory role and resolving long-standing debates in consciousness science, both in contemporary work and in the future. 1 Introduction Consciousness science does not currently make much use of introspective reports in a strong justificatory role; in particular they are not used to inform or provide empirical confirmation for theories of consciousness. For various researchers, both empirical and philosophical, this is a poor state of affairs, and they argue that introspective evidence can provide necessary, unique, and potentially revolutionary data, poised to resolve long-standing debates in consciousness science concerning the boundaries and contents of subjective experience (Hurlburt 2011; Jack and Roepstorff 2002; Kriegel 2013; Olivares et al. 2015; Overgaard et al. 2006a, b; Petitmengin 2006). This is set against a background where both supporters and detractors of introspection are aware of the problems associated with gathering veridical introspective reports. Supporters of introspection claim that these problems must be, and can be, overcome, while detractors are more sceptical. * Elizabeth Irvine 1 Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK 13 Vol.:(0123456789) E. Irvine This paper argues for a position of ‘dark pessimism’1 towards introspective reports playing a strong justificatory role in consciousness science, based on the application of frameworks and concepts of measurement. Introspective reports are not usually described as ‘measurements’, but these reports are after all attempts to veridically and publically record the properties of experience, sometimes using pre-set rating scales or response categories. Discussions of introspective evidence often focus on questions of variability, validity, and accuracy, all of which are basic features of any measure. Discussions of introspective reports also often mention training or calibration of introspective participants, validation of methods, and so on. Linking introspective reports with frameworks of measurement is therefore not totally alien. At the same time however, the use of this kind of vocabulary is distanced from any rigorous evaluation of introspective reports as measurements. Attempts at calibration or validation are often local, as are resolutions to problematic instances of introspective variability or inaccuracy. As I argue below, the idea of introspection as measurement can in fact be used to illustrate and identify the deep methodological problems that underlie much of the current debate about introspective evidence in consciousness science. These problems most obviously apply to the current state of affairs with respect to introspection, but I further argue that these problems prevent introspective reports from ever playing a strong justificatory and decisive role in consciousness science. The argument rests on evaluating the methodologies available to researchers to validate introspective procedures and reports. Compared to other uses of verbal reports in cognitive science, introspective reports about the nature of consciousness raise specific methodological challenges, related in particular to how unknown, how unpredictable, and how complex and sensitive the generation of introspective reports is, compared to other sources of evidence about consciousness. Analysing the steps required to use either ‘bottom-up’ bootstrapping methods or comparative techniques for validating introspective procedures or evidence shows that there are a number of reasons why introspective evidence cannot carry significant justificatory weight. Instead of introspective reports being able to resolve long-standing debates in consciousness science, the methodology presented below suggests that these debates would have to be largely resolved before introspective reports could be appropriately validated. By this point though, introspective reports would no longer be able to provide an independent source of justification for theoretical claims about the nature of consciousness. Below, Sect. 2 briefly identifies what introspective evidence is supposed to provide evidence about, and reviews recent arguments in favour of a strong justificatory role of introspective reports in consciousness science. This includes a discussion of the justificatory role of verbal reports in other areas of cognitive science, where I show that the methods used there are not transferrable to the case of consciousness. Section 3 motivates treating introspective reports as measurements and reviews 1 A term used by Schwitzgebel in his (2011). The pessimism argued for here is in some ways darker than Schwitzgebel’s, and is motivated in a radically different way. 13 Developing Dark Pessimism Towards the Justificatory Role… existing discussions of introspection in terms of measurement. In Sect. 4 a ‘bottomup’ process for developing measurement procedures is outlined, and problems in applying this to introspection are identified. In Sect. 5 the possibility of cross-validating introspective procedures is outlined and evaluated. Section 6 considers the cross-validation of sets of introspective evidence, and the evidentiary and justificatory status of introspective reports that result within this framework. An objection to the scope of the argument is considered in Sect. 7, and Sect. 8 concludes. 2 The Role of Introspective Reports Within consciousness science there is currently a lot of interest in the role of subjective data, and introspective reports in particular, in understanding the nature of experience. For the purposes of this paper, this mostly concerns identifying where the boundary between conscious (experienced) and unconscious (not experienced) perception is, and what its contents are (e.g. is subjective experience ‘rich’ or sparse’ in detail, Block 2007; Kouider et al. 2010). Many, though not all, of the positive proposals for introspectiv (...truncated)