Losing Introspective Authority: How Brain-Decoding Technology Will Confront Us with the Contents of Our Own Minds

Abstract

Introspecting subjects are widely believed to enjoy some form of epistemic privilege with regard to their mental states. While it is unclear if introspective knowledge is indeed infallible, our authority in the mental realm derives much of its force from the sheer absence of persuasive competing interpretations. With the advent of brain-decoding technology, such competition is now being introduced. While the literature sees the danger of decoding mental states in their revelation to third parties, I argue that divulging them to the subjects themselves is equally problematic: in addition to the introspective viewpoint, subjects will henceforth take on a third-personal, supposedly objective perspective on the same mental events that they are simultaneously observing from the inside. I shall analyse what it means to let oneself in via another route and explore the psychological effects that the ensuing confrontation is likely to have on our perceived introspective authority.