The Foreground and Background of Consciousness

This paper questions the tendency of philosophers, especially in the free will debate, to posit a certain experience of the self as introspectively obvious. It will attempt to demonstrate that introspection can create an experience of the self that is different from self-experience prior to introspection: hence, that introspection can distort self-experience. It will be argued that although there is room for the use of introspection in phenomenology and philosophy, this use should be continually questioned and open to re-examination. The concepts of a foreground and background will be introduced as a more productive way of understanding and visualising consciousness.