Abstract
This paper is a step toward relinking the scattered subjectivist-phenomenological traditions in psychology to offer some balance for our current “extraverted” obsession with the experimental management of information and computation. Felt meaning, physiognomy, and metaphor are crucial to such a Fechnerian endeavor, because these most subjective aspects of symbolic cognition are also most strikingly attuned to the qualia afforded by the environment.
Specifically, the striking overlap between the techniques and phenomena of altered states of consciousness and classical introspectionism, understood through a holistic cognitive perspective, exteriorizes normally masked aspects of metaphor—the synaesthetically mediated reorganization of microgenetic-iconic stages of perception. Titchener’s sensory-affective core has the place in a psychology of metaphor that it so lacked in functional perception (Gibson), and the disparity between Würzburg “impalpables” of thought and Cornell imagery protocols can be resolved if we assume that all representational processes have a presentational aspect based on complex or geometric synesthesias. Support for this approach is drawn from Wittgenstein’s later notebooks.
For many individuals external reality remains to some extent a subjective phenomenon. In the extreme case the individual hallucinates either at certain specific moments, or perhaps in a generalized way. There exist all sorts of expressions for this state (“fey,” “not all there,” “feet off the ground,” “unreal”) and psychiatrically we refer to such individuals as schizoid.... To balance this one would have to state that there are others who are so firmly anchored in objectively perceived reality that they are ill in the opposite direction of being out of touch with the subjective world and with the creative approach to fact.
Schizoid people are not satisfied with themselves any more than are extroverts who cannot get in touch with dream. These two groups of people come to us for psychotherapy because in the one case they do not want to spend their lives irrevocably out of touch with the facts of life, and in the other case because they feel estranged from dream. They have a sense that something is wrong and that there is a dissociation in their personalities, and they would like to be helped to achieve... a state of time-space integration in which there is one self containing everything instead of dissociated elements that exist in compartments, or are scattered around and left lying about.
This gives us our indication for therapeutic procedure—to afford opportunity for formless experience, and for creative impulses, motor and sensory, which are the stuff of playing. And on the basis of playing is built the whole of man’s experiential existence.... This if reflected back, but only if reflected back, becomes part of the organized individual personality, and eventually this in summation makes the individual to be, to be found.... No longer are we either introvert or extrovert. We experience life in the area of transitional phenomena, in the exciting interweave of subjectivity and objective observation, and in an area that is intermediate between the inner reality of the individual and the shared reality of the world that is external to individuals.
D. W. Winnicott, 1971, pp. 64, 66–67
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ach, N. (1951). Determining tendencies; awareness. In D. Rapaport (Ed.), Organization and pathology of thought (pp. 15–38). New York: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1905)
Adams, G. (1923). An experimental study of memory color and related phenomena. American Journal of Psychology, 23, 359–407.
Angyal, A. (1935). The perceptual basis of somatic delusions in a case of schizophrenia. Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 34, 270–279.
Angyal, A. (1936). The experience of the body-self in schizophrenia. Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 35, 1029–1053.
Angyal, A. (1937). Disturbances of activity in a case of schizophrenia. Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 38, 1047–1054.
Arnheim, R. (1969). Visual thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Arnheim, R. (1974). Art and visual perception. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bartlett, F. (1932). Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations. New York: Basic Books.
Boisen, A. (1962). The exploration of the inner world. New York: Harper.
Brentano, F. (1960). The distinction between mental and physical phenomena. In R. M. Chisholm (Ed.), Realism and the background of phenomenology (pp. 39–61). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. (Original work published 1874)
Brown, D., Forte, M., & Dysart, M. (1984). Visual sensitivity and mindfulness meditation. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 58, 775–784.
Bühler, K. (1951). On thought connections. In D. Rapaport (Ed.), Organization and pathology of thought (pp. 39–57). New York: Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1908)
Burnett, N., & Dallenbach, K. (1927). The experience of heat. American Journal of Psychology, 38, 418–431.
Cassirer, E. (1955). The philosophy of symbolic forms (Vol. 2). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cattell, R. (1930). The subjective character of cognition and the presentational development of perception. British Journal of Psychology Monographs, 14, 1–166.
Celine, L. (1968). Castle to castle. New York: Delacorte.
Chang, G. (Ed.). (1963). Teachings of Tibetan yoga. New York: University Books.
Chapman, J. (1966). The early symptoms of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 225–251.
Clarke, H. M. (1911). Conscious attitudes. American Journal of Psychology, 22, 214–249.
Deikman, A. (1971). Bimodal consciousness. Archives of General Psychiatry, 25, 481–489.
Dennett, D. (1978). Toward a cognitive theory of consciousness. In C. Savage (Ed.), Perception and cognition issues in the foundations of psychology. Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science (pp. 201–228). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Don, W., & Weld, H. (1924). Lapse of meaning with visual fixation. American Journal of Psychology, 35, 446–453.
Duncker, K. (1947). Phenomenology and epistemology of consciousness of objects. Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 7, 505–541.
Edelson, M. (1975). Language and interpretation in psychoanalysis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Evans, R. (1972). E. B. Titchener and his lost system. Journal of the History of Behavioural Sciences, 8, 168–180.
Fischer, R. (1975). Cartography of inner space. In R. Siegel & L. West (Eds.), Hallucinations: Behavior, experience, and theory (pp. 197–239). New York: Wiley.
Flavell, J., & Draguns, J. (1957). A microgenetic approach to perception and thought. Psychological Bulletin, 54, 197–217.
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books.
Freud, S. (1957). The unconscious. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 159–215). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915)
Freud, S. (1959). The “uncanny.” In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 17, pp. 217–256). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1919)
Gendlin, E. (1962). Experiencing and the creation of meaning. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
Geschwind, N. (1965). Disconnexion syndromes in animals and man. Brain, 88, 237–294, 585–644.
Gibson, J. (1963). The useful dimensions of sensitivity. American Psychologist, 18, 1–15.
Gibson, J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Globus, G. G. (1973). Consciousness and brain: II. Introspection, the qualia of experience, and the unconscious. Archives of General Psychiatry, 29, 167–176.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row.
Goleman, D. (1972). The Buddha on meditation and states of consciousness. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 4, 1–44.
Govinda, A. (1960). Foundations of Tibetan mysticism. New York: Dutton.
Haber, R. N. (1983). The impending demise of the icon. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 6, 1–54.
Haskell, R. (1984). Empirical structures of mind: Cognition, linguistics, and transformation. Journal of Mind & Behavior, 5, 29–48.
Hebb, D., & Thompson, W. (1968). The social significance of animal studies. In G. Lindzey (Ed.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 729–774). Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Heidegger, M. (1971). On the way to language. New York: Harper & Row.
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology and other essays. New York: Harper.
Hillman, J. (1978). The therapeutic value of alchemical language. Dragonflies, pp. 33–42.
Hofstadter, D. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. New York: Basic Books.
Humphrey, G. (1951). Thinking. New York: Methuen.
Hunt, H. T. (1984). A cognitive psychology of mystical and altered-state experience. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 58, 467–513.
Hunt, H. T. (1985). Cognition and states of consciousness: The necessity for empirical study of ordinary and nonordinary consciousness for contemporary cognitive psychology. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 60, 239–282.
Hunt, H. T. (n.d.). [Research protocol]. Unpublished data.
Hunt, H. T., & Chefurka, C. M. (1976). A test of the psychedelic model of consciousness. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 867–896.
Hunt, W. A. (1933). The meaning of pleasantness and unpleasantness. American Journal of Psychology, 45, 345–348.
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Jacobson, E. (1911). On meaning and understanding. American Journal of Psychology, 22, 553–577.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vols. 1 & 2). New York: Dover.
James, W. (1912). Does consciousness exist? In W. James, Essays in radical empiricism (pp. 1–38). New York: Longmans, Green. (Original work published 1904)
Jung, C. G. (1953). Psychology and alchemy. New York: Pantheon.
Jung, C. G. (1959). A study in the process of individuation. In C. G. Jung, The archetypes and the collective unconscious (pp. 290–354). New York: Pantheon.
Kakise, H. (1911). A preliminary experimental study of the conscious concomitants of understanding. American Journal of Psychology, 22, 14–64.
Katz, D. (1935). The world of colour. London: Kegan Paul.
Klüver, H. (1966). Mescal and mechanisms of hallucination. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Krueger, F. (1928). The essence of feeling: Outline of a systematic theory. In M. Reymert (Ed.), Feelings and emotions (pp. 58–85). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Laski, M. (1961). Ecstasy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lewin, K. (1936). Principles of topological psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mandler, G. (1975). Mind and emotion. New York: Wiley.
Marcel, A. (1983). Conscious and unconscious perception: An approach to the relations between phenomenal experience and perceptual processes. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 238–300.
Marks, L. E. (1978). The unity of the senses. New York: Academic Press.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Milner, M. (1957). On not being able to paint. New York: International Universities Press.
Minkowski, E. (1970). Lived time. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Nafe, J. P. (1924). An experimental study of the affective qualities. American Journal of Psychology, 35, 507–544.
Natsoulas, T. (1981). Basic problems of consciousness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 14, 132–178.
Neisser, U. (1976). Cognition and reality. San Francisco, CA: Freeman.
Otto, R. (1958). The idea of the holy (J. Harvey, Trans.). New York: Galaxy Books. (Original work published 1923)
Perky, C. W. (1910). An experimental study of imagination. American Journal of Psychology, 21, 422–452.
Rahn, C. (1913). The relation of sensation to other categories in contemporary psychology: A study in the psychology of thinking. Psychological Review Monographs, 67, 1–131.
Rahn, C. (1928). Science and the religious life: A psycho-physiological approach. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Reich, W. (1960). Selected writings. New York: Noonday Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1977). The rule of metaphor. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Rycroft, C. (1979). The innocence of dreams. New York: Pantheon.
Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. New York: Barnes & Noble.
Sampson, E. (1981). Cognitive psychology as ideology. American Psychologist, 36,730–743.
Sander, F. (1930). Structures, totality of experience, and gestalt. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Psychologies of 1930 (pp. 188–204). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
Sartre, J. P. (1947). A fundamental idea of the phenomenology of Husserl: Intentionality. In J. P. Sartre, Situations I. Paris: Gallinard. (Original work published 1939, J. Mayer, Trans.)
Schilder, P. (1933). Experiments on imagination, after images, and hallucinations. American Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 597–611.
Schilder, P. (1942). Mind: Perception and thought in their constructive aspects. New York: Columbia University Press.
Schutz, A. (1962). On multiple realities. In A. Schutz, The problems of social reality: Collected papers of Alfred Schutz (Vol. 1, pp. 207–259). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Searle, J. (1980). Minds, brains, programs. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 3, 427–457.
Severance, E., & Washburn, M. (1907). The loss of associative power in words after long fixation. American Journal of Psychology, 18, 182–186.
Shattock, E. (1960). An experiment in mindfulness. New York: Dutton.
Smith, D., & Raygor, A. (1956). Verbal satiation and personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52, 323–326.
Smith, G. (1957). Visual perception: An event over time. Psychological Review, 64, 306–313.
Spearman, C. (1923). The nature of intelligence and the principles of cognition. London: Macmillan.
Swartz, P. (1983). Concerning the continuous present. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57,159–171.
Titchener, E. B. (1909). Lectures on the experimental psychology of the thought processes. New York: Macmillan.
Titchener, E. B. (1912). Description vs. statement of meaning. American Journal of Psychology, 23, 165–182.
Titchener, E. B. (1915). Sensation and system. American Journal of Psychology, 26, 258–267.
Titchener, E. B. (1929). Systematic psychology: Prolegomena. New York: Macmillan.
VanDusen, W. (1972). The natural depth in man. New York: Harper & Row.
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language (E. Hanfmann & G. Vakar, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1934)
Werner, H. (1956). Microgenesis and aphasia. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52, 347–353.
Werner, H. (1961). Comparative psychology of mental development. New York: Science Education.
Werner, H., & Kaplan, B. (1963). Symbol formation. New York: Wiley.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. New York: Basic Books.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillan.
Wittgenstein, L. (1966). Lectures and conversations on aesthetics, psychology and religious belief Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1980). Culture and value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1980). Remarks on the philosophy of psychology (Vols. 1 & 2). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, L. (1982). Last writings on the philosophy of psychology (Vol. 1). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Woodworth, R. S. (1906). Imageless thought. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method, 3, 701–708.
Young, P. (1927). Studies in affective psychology. American Journal of Psychology, 38, 157–193.
Zener, K., & Gaffron, M. (1962). Perceptual experience: An analysis of its relation to the external world through internal processings. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 4, pp. 516–618). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hunt, H.T. (1986). A Cognitive Reinterpretation of Classical Introspectionism. In: Mos, L.P. (eds) Annals of Theoretical Psychology. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vol 4. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-6455-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-6453-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive