Interiority occupies a pivotal, contested position across the depth-psychological corpus. The term resists reduction to spatial metaphor: Hillman insists that the soul's sense of 'in-ness' is 'not a spatial idea, but an imaginal metaphor for the soul's nonvisible and nonliteral inherence,' while simultaneously warning against the subjectivism that collapses world into mere psychic projection. Giegerich radicalises the concept through a Hegelian lens, arguing that psychology is constitutively 'the discipline of interiority,' yet this interiority 'is not in me, not in you, not in anybody' — it resides in psychology's own Notion, in the 'absolute-negative interiorization' through which consciousness reaches reality precisely by staying within itself. Simondon approaches interiority from the theory of individuation, where the living membrane that 'separates a region of interiority from a region of exteriority' becomes the founding topological condition of life itself, distinguishing the living from the merely crystalline. Derrida's reading of Hegel marks time and sound as 'modes of interiority' belonging to conceptual representation and poetry. These positions collectively reveal a fundamental tension: whether interiority names a phenomenological depth that genuine psychology must inhabit, a logical-dialectical movement that negates naive inwardness, or a biophysical boundary condition prior to all psychology. The stakes are high — confusing literal with logical interiority, or collapsing the distinction between inside and outside, is diagnosed as the defining pathology of inadequate psychological method.
Psychology is the discipline of interiority. But this interiority is not in me, not in you, not in anybody, also not in the depth of any thing out there. It is in its (psychology’s) own Notion itself.
Giegerich defines psychology as constitutively the discipline of interiority, but radically relocates that interiority from personal subjectivity to the absolute-negative self-reference of psychology's own Notion.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
The sense of 'in-ness' refers neither to location nor to physical containment. It is not a spatial idea, but an imaginal metaphor for the soul’s nonvisible and nonliteral inherence, the imaginal psychic quality within all events.
Hillman argues that psychological interiority is an imaginal rather than spatial category, denoting the soul's inherence in all events rather than a literal inner container.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975thesis
the borderline cases between inert matter and the living being are precisely cases of processes that unfold according to the dimensions of exteriority and interiority. These cases include the individuation of crystals.
Simondon locates the interiority/exteriority distinction as the topological boundary condition that distinguishes living individuation from merely crystalline processes.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
the membrane is polarized: it is characterized as what separates a region of interiority from a region of exteriority: the membrane is polarize
Simondon grounds interiority biophysically in the polarized asymmetry of the living membrane, making interiority a structural condition of life prior to any psychological meaning.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
Consciousness is an outside that is inside, and an inside that is outside... It is precisely 'in' me when, and to the extent that, it is 'out there.' It never leaves itself literally.
Giegerich argues that consciousness dialectically dissolves the opposition of inside and outside, so that genuine interiority is always simultaneously an exteriority — a position that undermines naive introspectionism.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
absolute-negative Er-innerung / interiorization 96, 97, 98, 100, 147, 195, 243, 253, 256, 278 as corruption ever deeper into itself
The index entry for 'absolute-negative interiorization' across Giegerich's text marks the systematic centrality of Er-innerung — a Hegelian remembering-into-inwardness — as the operative logic of psychological depth.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
does this turning outward that the alchemists connect with yellowing have to be acted out?... is not the very prevention of the intention within the process of yellowing, which would need the negativity of one’s 'remembering,' one’s Er-innerung (interiorization), in the sense of a complete chemical (inner, intrinsic) 'dissolution into Mercury'?
Giegerich contends that alchemical yellowing requires an Er-innerung — an absolute interiorization — rather than a literal outward shift of attention, and that failing to understand this constitutes a fundamental methodological error.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
Exactly by firmly staying within itself, even unconditionally interiorizing itself into itself, into its own Notion, it reaches the real world. Logic is all-comprehensive.
Giegerich argues that unconditional self-interiorization, far from solipsism, is the only route by which psychology genuinely reaches external reality.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
soul, is defined as internal reflection. Internal reflection is in psychology more than a methodological option with which we can approach its subject matter. It is already 'objectively' inherent in the subject matter itself.
Giegerich contends that internal reflection is not merely a method chosen for psychology but is constitutively inherent in its object — the soul — making interiority an ontological rather than procedural category.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
Both psychology and sociology are two viewpoints that fabricate their own object based on interiority or exteriority; the psychological approach to the social is formed by the intermediary of small groups.
Simondon argues that psychology as a discipline is constituted by privileging interiority as its organising viewpoint, which he treats as a productive but partial construction of its object.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
myth is an indefinite reserve of possible judgments; it has the value of a paradigm and is turned toward group interiority, rather than toward beings exterior to judging relative to group norms.
Simondon distinguishes myth from opinion by locating myth's orientation toward group interiority, making interiority a sociological and not merely individual-psychological concept.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
Time and sound, now united to conceptual representation... and to the objectivity of language, are the modes of interiority and belong to the concept of poetry.
Derrida, reading Hegel, identifies time and sound as the sensory modes of interiority proper to language and poetry, positioning interiority within a semiotics of the ideal and the temporal.
, Margins of Philosophy, 1982supporting
Psychology has to turn, not just introspectively to the literal 'inside,' but to the same outside facts that all the different sciences turn to, but via itself, via its own center, its own internal Notion.
Giegerich distinguishes mere introspection from genuine psychological interiority, insisting that the latter routes all external observation through the soul's own Notion rather than bypassing it.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
Catching up with what has been projected far out into space or into the future does not imply a journey to it at all. It implies conversely that the intuited reality affects you while you are staying right here... This is what is meant by 'absolute-negative interiorization.'
Giegerich explicates absolute-negative interiorization as a movement in which projected reality returns inward to transform consciousness, rather than requiring an outward journey.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
The sublation has to be 'remembered,' 'er-innert,' interiorized into the form of psychology. It is the decomposition of the subject as substance or substrate and its going under into its own attribute.
Giegerich argues that the sublation of imaginal psychology must be er-innert — interiorized — into psychology's own logical form, not acted out literally, completing the movement of interiority.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
psychoanalysis had taught them was a place of mere shadows, only the scenery and machinery against which backdrop they played their inter- and intrasubjective drama.
Hillman critiques the subjectivism of psychoanalysis as a pathological over-investment in interiority that forecloses engagement with the world and its own psychic reality.
, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, 1992aside
personalities that are previously defined, i.e. structures that are constituted and fully formed before the moment when the interiority group is constituted, and that come to be encountered and overlapped.
Simondon introduces the 'interiority group' as a sociological category arising through collective individuation, extending interiority beyond the individual psyche into group formation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020aside