privileged access

The special way that we each have of knowing our own thoughts, intentions, and sensations. Many philosophers of a behaviourist and functionalist tendency have found it important to deny that there is such a special way, arguing instead that I know of my own mind in much the way that I know of yours (e.g. by seeing what I say when asked). Others, however, point out that the behaviour of reporting the result of introspection is a particular and legitimate kind of behaviour that deserves notice in any account of human psychology. See also heterophenomenology, privacy (mind).