What in the world are hallucinations?

In Ori Beck & Farid Masrour (eds.), The Relational View of Perception: New Essays. Routledge (forthcoming)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It is widely assumed that hallucinations are not a type of perception. Coupled with the idea that hallucinations possess phenomenal character, hallucinations raise a problem for naive realism, which maintains that phenomenal character is at least partly constituted by perceived worldly objects. While naive realists have typically responded by adopting a disjunctive view of phenomenal character, I argue that to resolve this conflict we should instead reject the idea that hallucinations are not a type of perception. I defend this view by considering six alleged differences between hallucination and perception that are thought to support the idea that we do not perceive worldly objects when hallucinating. I argue that these differences are all accommodated for in a particular type of perception, picture perception. Drawing on picture perception's resources, I offer an account of hallucinations and their idiosyncrasies, in a way that is plausible in our world, that accounts for the variety of hallucination types, and that is compatible with naive realism.

Author's Profile

Rami El Ali
University of Arizona

Analytics

Added to PP
yesterday

Downloads
8 (#97,957)

6 months
8 (#97,338)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?