# Introspection and the Phenomenology of Free Will: Problems and Prospects **Abstract:** Inspired and informed by the work of Russ Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel in their ‘Describing Inner Experience’, we do two things in this commentary. First, we discuss the degree of reliability that introspective methods might be expected to deliver across a range of types of experience. Second, we explore the phenomenology of agency as it bears on the topic of free will. We pose a number of potential problems for attempts to use introspective methods to answer various questions about the phenomenology of free-will experience — questions such as this: does such experience have metaphysical-libertarian satisfaction conditions? We then discuss the prospects for overcoming some of these problems via approaches such as Hurlburt’s DES methodology, the so-called ‘talk aloud’ protocol, and forms of abduction that combine introspection with non-introspection-based forms of evidence. [V]oluntary actions, though generally neglected in psychology, have a distinctive phenomenology which can be studied both qualitatively and quantitatively. (Haggard and Johnson, 2003) The work of Russ Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel in their Describing Inner Experience represents a welcome interdisciplinary collaboration resulting in a series of fruitful exchanges which thereby advances Correspondence: Terry Horgan, University of Arizona Email: [email protected] Mark Timmons, University of Arizona Email: [email protected] Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18, No. 1, 2011, pp. 180–205 Copyright **Authors:** [[Horgan]]