psychologists. I will begin by summarizing an article which seems to me
to afford a good specimen of their arguments, namely, "The Case against
Introspection," by Knight Dunlap ("Psychological Review," vol xix, No.
5, pp. 404-413, September, 1912). After a few historical quotations,
he comes to two modern defenders of introspection, Stout and James. He
quotes from Stout such statements as the following: "Psychical states as
such become objects only when we attend to them in an introspective way.
Otherwise they are not themselves objects, but only constituents of the
process by which objects are recognized" ("Manual," 2nd edition, p. 134.
The word "recognized" in Dunlap's quotation should be "cognized.") "The
object itself can never be identified with the present modification of
the individual's consciousness by which it is cognized" (ib. p. 60).
This is to be true even when we are thinking about modifications of
our own consciousness; such modifications are to be always at least
partially distinct from the conscious experience in which we think of
them.

At this point I wish to interrupt the account of Knight Dunlap's article
in order to make some observations on my own account with reference to
the above quotations from Stout. In the first place, the conception of
"psychical states" seems to me one which demands analysis of a somewhat
destructive character. This analysis I shall give in later lectures as
regards cognition; I have already given it as regards desire. In the
second place, the conception of "objects" depends upon a certain view
as to cognition which I believe to be wholly mistaken, namely, the view
which I discussed in my first lecture in connection with Brentano.
In this view a single cognitive occurrence contains both content and
object, the content being essentially mental, while the object is
physical except in introspection and abstract thought. I have already
criticized this view, and will not dwell upon it now, beyond saying
that "the process by which objects are cognized" appears to be a very
slippery phrase. When we "see a table," as common sense would say, the
table as a physical object is not the "object" (in the psychological
sense) of our perception. Our perception is made up of sensations,
images and beliefs, but the supposed "object" is something inferential,
externally related, not logically bound up with what is occurring in us.
This question of the nature of the object also affects the vi