BROASA-8v1.pdf — page 8

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Lajos Brons
Vol. 28
unable to self-ascribe emotional states in the ﬁrst place. If this is right, when it comes
to introspecting emotional states, the idea of gross or massive error is incoherent. And
most likely the same is true for other kinds of introspection6.
Schwitzgebel makes a valid point when he asserts that introspection cannot tell
us much about the details of what goes on in our minds. Although it is widely as-
sumed that our minds are transparent to ourselves, as Peter Carruthers (2011) has
most forcefully shown, our minds are really terribly opaque. Most of the time we have
no clue about what and how exactly we are thinking, feeling, and so forth. Moreover,
as explained in the previous section, there are independent reasons to doubt the re-
liability of introspection of some aspects of imagery. However, that we can be wrong
about any detail of the introspective pictures we sketch of our own mental lives does
not imply that we are completely wrong about all of the broad outlines. And that
we can be wrong about any particular detail of (the phenomenology of) our imagery
does not imply that we are wrong about not having imagery at all, or about having
extremely vivid imagery.
Furthermore, Schwitzgebel’s argument that introspection of imagery is unreli-
able is based on introspection of his own imagery, which appears to be extremely
vivid (see, for example, 2012b: 37). This appears to be self-defeating, but it also
nicely illustrates that researchers’ theoretical views about imagery are inﬂuenced by
the vividness of their own imagery (Reisberg, Pearson, & Kosslyn 2002; Faw 2009).
More importantly, if Schwitzgebel’s introspective experience entitles him to believe
that he experiences imagery, then a non-imager’s introspective experience entitles her
to believe that she doesn’t7. (See also Hohwy 2011.)
(ad 2) — If there are signiﬁcant diﬀerences in imagery abilities across individ-
uals, one would expect these diﬀerences to matter, but why would they imply “vast
corresponding diﬀerences on cognitive tasks involving imagery” (emphasis added)?
Many deﬁciencies can be compensated. A lack of imagery of some kind could be
compensated by imagery of other kinds, or even by other mental faculties. (See also
previous section.) If tests are not carefully designed to take that into account it is
doubtful that they would ﬁnd signiﬁcant diﬀerences between non- or low-imagers and
6 The argument in this paragraph is Davidsonian in spirit. See, for example, Davidson
1999.
7 Except, of course, if there would be a reason to believe that Schwitzgebel’s introspec-
tion is more reliable than that of very many self-ascribed aphantasics. But what could
that reason be? It cannot be that Schwitzgebel is a philosopher, because some aphan-
tasics are philosophers. Neither can it be that Schwitzgebel’s introspective experience
is “normal” while that of aphantasics is “abnormal” because, ﬁrstly, that would beg
the question, and secondly, Schwitzgebel’s introspective experience is probably not
“normal” either, but rather appears to be “abnormal” in the opposite direction—that
is, his extremely vivid imagery suggests that he is a hyperphantasic.
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