A few days ago Marc Andreessen made an outrageous claim that made the rounds on X. Introspection is a futile activity, he asserted. The less one engages in it, the more productive they would be.
The rationale was that introspection would just lead one to doubt oneself, causing them to have second thoughts about their entrepreneurial ventures. If you want to build something, just don’t question yourself, act, and let the feedback come from external forces, market, clients, friends.
While I think Marc here was referring to extreme self-doubt and impostor syndrome, which might hinder one’s entrepreneurial spirit, I want to examine this briefly from the viewpoint of the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling.
Schelling believed that we are opaque to ourselves, with a conscious and unconscious part. Introspection would only serve us so much because we can only analyze that which we can already be aware of. Instead, Schelling argues that an important part of growth takes place through self-reflection. This entails an outward creative activity.
Broadly speaking, this creative or building act starts with a conscious decision to do so, but also gives way for the unconscious sides to materialize as well. That which we produce becomes the object of reflection, by which we learn more about ourselves, and leads to further development.
In a sense, Marc’s point can be viewed from that angle. Whether there’s a unified self or a bundle of selves (as Hume argues), the difference between introspection and self-reflection lies in that the former looks at the limits of the self, while the latter strives to expand beyond those limits by bringing forth the ideas that we might not be immediately aware of.
On a larger scale, this also applies to philosophy itself. Schelling argues that art, understood as a creative act, is the organ of philosophy, because without an object of reflection, whether introspection or not, the activity is more akin to a vicious or circular activity.
While self-reflection requires an outward movement or activity, it also involves a reflexive, inward movement of introspection sooner or later. However, Marc’s claim makes some sense when we take into consideration the implicit assumption that introspection is just a circular activity if not accompanied by bringing something into the world.