The Multidisjunctive Conception of Hallucination

Abstract

Direct realists think that we can't get a clear view the nature of hallucinating a white picket fence: is it representing a white picket fence? is it sensing whitepicket-fencily? is it being acquainted with a whiteʹ′ picketedʹ′ sense-datum? These are all epistemic possibilities for a single hallucination: after all, phenomenological reflection suggests that the nature of that hallucination is being acquainted with a white picket fence; but the suggestion is misleading, and we have no further evidence about this nature. But if these are all epistemic possibilities for a single hallucination, they are all metaphysical possibilities for the hallucinations which subjectively match it. Hallucination of a white picket fence itself is, therefore, a disjunctive or "multidisjunctive" category. While this undermines MGF Martin's widely discussed variant of the "causal argument from hallucination" for his "epistemic" conception of hallucination, Martin's epistemic category still serves as a "reference fixer" for my many disjuncts.Hallucination, edited by Fiona Macpherson; MIT Press, forthcoming.

Illusions of Optimal Motion, Relationism, and Perceptual Content

“…These remarks are directly relevant to a series of recent attempts at reconciling representationalism with naïve realism (see, e.g., Hellie, 2013;Kennedy, 2013;McDowell, 2013;Schellenberg, 2014;Siegel, 2010;Soteriou, 2010). Before one tries to build relations to mind-independent objects into perceptual contents, one ought to be clear on what it means for perceptual experiences to have objects as constituents.…”

“…The epistemic conception of hallucination has been strongly criticized (Hellie, ; Siegel, ; Sturgeon, ). Although I am sympathetic to some of these objections, I will assume – for the sake of the argument – that austere relationists could respond to them.…”

“…This epistemic analysis enables the austere relationist to account for hallucinations without introducing perceptual contents. 16 The epistemic conception of hallucination has been strongly criticized (Hellie, 2013;Siegel, 2008;Sturgeon, 2008). Although I am sympathetic to some of these objections, I will assumefor the sake of the argumentthat austere relationists could respond to them.…”

Naïve realism about unconscious perception

“…the view that the only positive characteristics that can be given to an hallucination is that it is indiscriminable from the first-person perspective from a perception (Martin 2004); (ii) eliminativism about the phenomenal character of hallucination (Fish 2009); (iii) multidisjunctivism, i.e. the view that no perception shares its fundamental kind with any hallucination, and some hallucinations fail to share fundamental kinds with other hallucinations (Hellie 2014b).…”

The Phenomenological Problem of Perception

“…To mention just two: the naïve realist might claim that to hallucinate is to stand in a relation of acquaintance to sense‐data and that standing in this relation to sense‐data suffices for phenomenological directness; or he might claim that to hallucinate is to be the subject of a mental state with representational content and that being in such a state suffices for phenomenological directness 20 . In addition, as Hellie (forthcoming) notes, the naïve realist might claim that different kinds of hallucinations possess different structures.…”