On the Possibility of Hallucinations

Masrour, Farid

doi:10.1093/mind/fzy088

Cited by 42 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Not all naïve realists are disjunctivists. Some have tried to give a common account of "good" and "bad" cases of perception (Ali, 2018;Barkasi, 2020Barkasi, , 2021Johnston, 2004;Kennedy, 2013;Knight, 2014;Masrour, 2020;Raleigh, 2014). These accounts vary even more than disjunctivism, but the basic approach is to either (i) reconstrue "bad" cases (perceptual hallucination) as "good" cases of successful perception, or (ii) find a common core to the "good" and "bad" cases that doesn't make the relational nature of the "good" cases redundant.…”

Section: Direct Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reviving the naïve realist approach to memory

Sant’Anna

Barkasi²

2022

PhiMiSci

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The viability of a naïve realist theory of memory was a lively debate for philosophers of mind in the first half of the twentieth century. More recently, though, naïve realism has been largely abandoned as a non-starter in the memory literature, with representationalism being the standard view held by philosophers of memory. But rather than being carefully argued, the dismissal of naïve realism is an assumption that sits at the back of much recent theorizing in the philosophy of memory. In this paper, we identify three reasons why philosophers of memory have felt compelled to outright reject naïve realism. We argue that none of those reasons are successful. Thus, far from being a non-starter, we argue that naïve realism is a theoretical perspective that needs to be given serious consideration in current philosophy of memory debates.

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Section: Direct Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reviving the naïve realist approach to memory

Sant’Anna

Barkasi²

2022

PhiMiSci

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“…22 At a minimum, this will be true of what Martin (2004) calls "causally-matching hallucinations": hallucinations induced by artificially putting a subject's brain into the very same state it is in when the subject has a veridical perception. Recently, some naïve realists have attempted to escape the traditional argument, without rejecting BP, by denying that such causally-matching hallucinations are even so much as possible (see, e.g., Masrour (2020)). Such a move does not seem very promising to me-it seems all too clear that causallymatching hallucinations are indeed possible-but I will not pursue the issue here.…”

Section: A Hidden Non-empirical Premisementioning

confidence: 99%

In defense of the armchair: Against empirical arguments in the philosophy of perception

Epstein

2022

Nous

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A recurring theme dominates recent philosophical debates about the nature of conscious perception: naïve realism's opponents claim that the view is directly contradicted by empirical science. I argue that, despite their current popularity, empirical arguments against naïve realism are fundamentally flawed. The nonempirical premises needed to get from empirical scientific findings to substantive philosophical conclusions are ones the naïve realist is known to reject. Even granting the contentious premises, the empirical findings do not undermine the theory, given its overall philosophical commitments. Thus, contemporary empirical research fails to supply any new argumentative force against naïve realism. I conclude that, as philosophers of mind, we would be better served spending a bit less time trying to wield empirical science as a cudgel against our opponents, and a bit more time working through the implications of each other's views -something we can accomplish perfectly well from the comfort of our armchairs.

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“…Disjunctivists maintain that perfect hallucinations and veridical perceptual experiences differ in kind even though they are indiscriminable from one another (Brewer, 2011;Byrne & Logue, 2008;Campbell, 2002;Fish, 2009;Hinton, 1967;Martin, 2002Martin, , 2004Martin, , 2006McDowell, 1982;Snowdon, 1980;Soteriou, 2016). But disjunctivism has been subjected to powerful critiques for, among other things, providing an inadequate account of hallucination's phenomenal character (Hellie, 2007;Masrour, 2020;Pautz, 2010Pautz, , 2011Schellenberg, 2010Schellenberg, , 2011Schellenberg, , 2018Siegel, 2004Siegel, , 2008Sturgeon, 1998) and being in tension with the science of perception (Burge, 2005(Burge, , 2010Pautz, 2017Pautz, , 2021.…”

Section: New Wave Relationalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mundane hallucinations and new wave relationalism

Beck

2021

Nous

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Relationalism maintains that mind‐independent objects are essential constituents of veridical perceptual experiences. According to the argument from hallucination, relationalism is undermined by perfect hallucinations, experiences that are introspectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptual experiences but lack an object. Recently, a new wave of relationalists have responded by questioning whether perfect hallucinations are possible: what seem to be perfect hallucinations may really be something else, such as illusions, veridical experiences of non‐obvious objects, or experiences that are not genuinely possible. This paper argues that however well new wave relationalism may handle brains in vats, drug users “seeing” pink elephants, and other extraordinary hallucinations, it struggles to accommodate mundane hallucinations, such as “hearing” your child cry out from the room down the hall when she is actually sound asleep or “feeling” vibrations on your thigh even when your phone isn't in your pocket. Mundane hallucinations are best explained as byproducts of noise in the perceptual system, and noise‐induced hallucinations are resistant to the strategies that new wave relationalists deploy to explain away other hallucinations. Mundane hallucinations can thus underpin an especially powerful version of the argument from hallucination.

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On the Possibility of Hallucinations

Cited by 42 publications

References 50 publications

Reviving the naïve realist approach to memory

Reviving the naïve realist approach to memory

In defense of the armchair: Against empirical arguments in the philosophy of perception

Mundane hallucinations and new wave relationalism

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