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Phenomenal Experiences, First-Person Methods, and the Artificiality of Experimental Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Uljana Feest
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Abstract

While philosophical discussions of first-person methods often turn on the veridicality of first-person reports, I argue that more attention should be paid to the circumstances and aims of their experimental production in the science of perception. After pointing to the ‘constructedness’ of first-person reports, I raise questions about the criteria by which to judge whether they illuminate something about the nature of perception. I illustrate this point with a historical debate between Gestalt psychologists and atomists, both of whom used first-person methods to investigate perception, but who disagreed deeply over the epistemic value of their respective first-person data.

Type
Cognitive and Psychological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 927 - 939
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The author would like to thank audiences at the Tübingen Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (June 2012) and the PSA session “Introspective Evidence in the Scientific Study of Perception” (November 2012) for their feedback. I am especially grateful to Mazviita Chirimuuta for her helpful comments on two previous drafts.

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