Disjunctivism and the nature of hallucinations

Abstract

The paper examines such an important topic for the modern analytical philosophy of perception as the relationship between direct realism and the argument from hallucination. For direct realists, the problem of hallucination creates serious difficulties. If in veridical experience the phenomenal character is explained by the relation of acquaintance with the properties of surrounding material objects, then how is it possible that hallucinatory experience, which has no object by definition, has a phenomenal character? Generally, in connection with this problem, direct realists turn to the disjunctive analysis of perceptual experience, according to which perception and hallucinatory experience are fundamentally different in its metaphysical nature. The author evaluates the validity of the main approaches of direct realists to solving the problem of hallucinations – negative and positive. As an example of the negative approach, the disjunctivist position of M. Martin is considered, in which hallucinations are characterized only as mental states that are subjectively indistinguishable from perception. Such theoretical minimalism is justified in connection with the argument from explanatory screening: if hallucinatory experience can be explained through a positive conception, for example, sense data theory or representationalism, then an explanation of veridical experience through direct realism becomes redundant. As an example of a positive approach, M. Johnston’s position is presented, which asserts that in both veridical visual experience and hallucinatory experience, the subject is aware of a sensory profile of various properties and relationships.In the case of veridical experience, this universal is instantiated by material particulars, but in the case of hallucinatory experience, the subject is presented with only a cluster of uninstantiated properties and relations without reference to any object – physical, mental, abstract. Johnston’s conception explains hallucinatory experience while preserving the truth of direct realism. Although perception and hallucination may be phenomenologically indistinguishable, their metaphysical nature is not. Veridical perception includes, but is not exhausted by, the sensory profile of hallucination. The author concludes that, despite its shortcomings, Johnston’s approach successfully addresses the problems associated with the argument from hallucination and explanatory screening.