The Death of Consciousness? James's Case against Psychological Unobservables
Journal of the history of philosophy April 3, 2020 A. Klein 42 citations
A historical and philosophical analysis argues that mistrust of consciousness in early 20th-century psychology did not originate solely with behaviorism. William James, writing before John Watson's 1913 manifesto, already expressed unease about consciousness. James's critique stemmed from his opposition to perceptual elementarism—the view that mental states are composed of atomic sensory elements. He argued that just as no isolated sensory elements can be found in conscious experience, no pure consciousness can be separated from its contents. This argument relied on rejecting appeals to unconscious mental processes as unobservable, mirroring his skepticism about introspecting consciousness itself.