Mental Philosophy

How can the mind inspect itself while it is thinking? Joseph Haven opens with this puzzle—and argues that our thoughts and feelings may be among the surest facts we can know.

Writing in the late nineteenth century, Haven sets out to establish mental philosophy as a science grounded in observation and experience, like the study of the natural world. Its subject is at once the observer and the object observed: each person can examine the thoughts, feelings, and choices of their own consciousness, then compare them with what they learn of others. The inquiry ranges across intellect, sensibilities, and will, asking how the mind works and what can truly be known about it. If consciousness offers such direct evidence, what laws will careful observation reveal?

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