Inner Sense Vincent Picciuto and Peter Carruthers Published in Perception and Its Modalities, Eds. Stokes, Matthen, Biggs, Oxford University Press (2014). This chapter considers whether any of the inner sense mechanisms that have been postulated to detect and represent some of our own mental states should qualify as sensory modalities. We first review and reject the four standard views of the senses, and then propose a set of properties that would be possessed by a prototypical sensory system. Thereafter we consider how closely the existing models of inner sense match the prototype. Some resemble a prototypical sense to a high degree, some much less so. 1. Introduction A number of theorists have proposed the existence of an inner sense modality. According to some, the faculty of inner sense both represents certain mental states and explains how they are phenomenally conscious (Armstrong, 1968; 1984; Lycan, 1996). These forms of theory purport to explain how it is that perceptual states acquire a dimension of phenomenology or “feel”. It is held that they acquire such properties by being detected and represented through the operations of an inner sense. According to other proponents of inner sense, in contrast, the faculty explains how it is that we have privileged and authoritative access to certain of our mental states, including both perceptual states and propositional attitudes (Nichols and Stich, 2003; Goldman, 2006). 1 Here inner sense is deployed to explain how we have a certain kind of knowledge, not to explain what makes mental states phenomenally conscious. It is widely believed among philosophers that people have access to their own experiences and thoughts that is both privileged (not available to others) and authoritative (unable to be challenged by others). Inner‐sense theories provide one candidate explanation of these supposed facts. 2 1 Although Nichols and Stich (2003) defend the existence of at least two introspective monitoring mechanisms (for identifying perceptions and attitudes respectively), they do not themselves use the language of “inner‐sense” to describe their view. However, since the mechanisms they describe are functionally equivalent to what might plausibly be taken to be forms of inner sense, we propose to consider their views alongside inner‐sense accounts that are explicitly formulated as such. 2 See Carruthers (2011) for a view that denies that we have privileged and authoritative access to our own