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"Introjection" is a technical philosophical term coined by Richard Avenarius,¹ whom Husserl has credited as a main influence on his own formulation of the theme of the natural attitude of pre-theoretical experience.² "Introjection" is Avenarius' term for what he construes as an unwitting, involuntary, vague, and befuddling thought process. He analyzes it into four steps, each of which leads further away from what Avenarius claims is the natural, pre-philosophical conception of the world and of our place in the world. The first step is to inject, in thought, into my fellow human being certain ideas, images or impressions of the world, instead of continuing to view him or her as expressing a relation to our common surrounding world. The second step is to assume that there must be a self, soul, or other substance, material or immaterial, that has those ideas or impressions. In the third and fourth steps, I assume the same things about myself that I have assumed about other human beings, namely, that I too must have certain ideas, images, or impressions of the world, and that I too must be a self or soul or other sort of substance that has those ideas or impressions of the world. As the end result of the complete process of introjection, the world which pre-philosophical experience found as one common environment, containing myself and others as both central members and component parts, is now thought of, first as doubled into the internal and external worlds, and secondly, as fragmented and dispersed into the many ideas of the world possessed by the many selves.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-8628-3_12

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