Introspection is often conceptualized as a “purely inner” activity, whereby one temporarily breaks their coupling with the external world to focus on their “inner world”. The term derives from the Latin spicere (to look) and intro- (inside), conveying the image of the mind’s eye turning-inward, to observe one’s thoughts and feelings. Unlike processes that help us gain knowledge of the external world, introspection should be a “distinctive process that generates knowledge of one’s own mind only” (Schwitzgebel 2024, italics added); hence a process insulated from the external world and worldly affairs.
We (Facchin, Rucińska & Fondelli, under review) offer a substantially different picture of introspection. Inspired by radically embodied cognitive science, we argue that introspective processes delivering substantial self-knowledge do consist of embodied, world-involving activities, wherein the introspector remains coupled with the world in specific, controlled ways. Introspection, we argue, is something we do while writing in our diaries, while talking to ourselves (or with friends) to clear our minds, when confronting our deepest desires and fears with a therapist, or when creating art to explore our feelings in a mindful way. Introspection is thus not a detached, decoupled “looking-inwards”, but a worldly, self-exploratory activity of an embodied, enculturated agent embedded in a specific environment. This talk focuses on some key examples to make our case, and defends our claim from some foreseeable objections.”