FATALI SM OR FREEDOM 



It has already been noted that "veri- 

 fiable experience" is the only legitimate 

 basis for a scientific inquiry. Some ob- 

 jective psychologists claim that since in- 

 trospective experience is a strictly personal 

 matter it is not a verifiable experience and 

 hence it is inaccessible to scientific investi- 

 gation. This is an arbitrary and unjustifi- 

 able limitation of the scientific method. It 

 it true that conscious experiences are un- 

 like those objective events that can be veri- 

 fied by anybody who will repeat the con- 

 ditions exactly. But one can experiment 

 with his own conscious experience and 

 modify the causal factors involved in suc- 

 cessive repetitions of approximately the 

 same experience. And with the aid of 

 language we can get some Insight into 

 other peoples' conscious processes and 

 compare them with our own. We must 

 employ a very different technique when 

 we investigate strictly subjective experi- 

 ence from that suitable for those experi- 

 ences which we objectify, and proper 

 scientific control of these observations Is 

 much more difficult. 



Anger, for instance, is a conscious proc- 

 ess. We can investigate the physical con- 

 ditions which make us angry with the ordi- 



[36] 



