Mill and Comte on the method of introspection

Abstract

August Comte's criticisms of the introspective method in psychology and John Stuart Mill's replies are examined, and it is argued that Mill's response is largely correct. It is suggested that Comte never understood what the method aimed to do because his roots were, through Franz Joseph Gall, in the tradition of the Scots critics of associationism, rather than the tradition of David Hartley and James Mill and John Stuart Mill. The innatist theories of perception and of morality had the consequence that the introspective method used by the associationists to uncover the genetic roots of mental phenomena can be of no use. With this background we are not surprised at Comte's view of the proper method for a science of psychology.

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