 Peirce argued that there is no power of "intuition" in the sense of a cognition unconditioned by inference, and no power of introspection, intuitive or otherwise, and that awareness of an internal world is by hypothetical inference from external facts.Introspection and intuition were staple philosophical tools at least since Descartes.He argued that there is no absolutely first cognition in a cognitive process; such a process has its beginning but can always be analyzed into finer cognitive stages.