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Maja Spener, Introspection: First-Person Access in Science and Agency, Oxford University Press, 2024, 240pp., $90.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780198867449.
Reviewed by Kateryna S. Franco, California State University
In Introspection: First-Person Access in Science and Agency, Maja Spener masterfully tackles one of the most influential and far-reaching issues in philosophy of mind: how good we are at accessing our own minds, that is, the reliability of introspection. Introspection, a first-personal way in which we acquire self-knowledge, has long been a source of invaluable knowledge and a source of great controversy in both philosophy and psychology, precisely because of doubts concerning its reliability. These doubts have been so consequential that reliance on introspection in philosophy and especially in psychology has seemingly required an apologetic explanation or assertive justification as trust in introspection has hit rock bottom in the recent past. Spener’s book reverses that trend, powerfully demonstrating that we can indeed trust introspection, as…
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