Naïve Realism and the Conception of Hallucination as Non-Sensory Phenomena

Abstract

In defence of naïve realism, Fish has advocated an eliminativist view of hallucination, according to which hallucinations lack visual phenomenology. Logue, and Dokic and Martin, respectively, have developed the eliminativist view in different manners. Logue claims that hallucination is a non-phenomenal, perceptual representational state. Dokic and Martin maintain that hallucinations consist in the confusion of monitoring mechanisms, which generates an affective feeling in the hallucinating subject. This paper aims to critically examine these views of hallucination. By doing so, I shall point out what theoretical requirements are imposed on naïve realists who characterize hallucinations as non-visual-sensory phenomena.

The integration problem for naive realism

“…A promising way of defending the imagist strategy (Niikawa 2017, 378, and forthcoming) is arguing a posteriori that exercises of sensory imagination get disabled by exercises of the capacity to perceive. But while this may be one fertile interpretation of the relation among both capacities, there are others.…”

Phenomenally-grounded Intentionality for Naïve Realists

“…12 For one, one may find it plausible that hallucinatory experiences have a phenomenal or qualitative character (e.g. Logue, 2012;Niikawa, 2017). Whether naïve realists can allow this, and whether they can allow that there is a sense in which a perception and an indiscriminable hallucination can be phenomenally similar without threatening the claim that the phenomenal character of genuine perceptions constitutively depends on the mind-independent environment, is a complex question.…”

“…10 Not all naïve realists are disjunctivists and will accept this claim, see, e.g.,Raleigh (2014),Masrour (2020). 11 See, e.g.,Niikawa (2017) for a critical discussion of the options available to naïve realists who aim at giving a positive account of hallucination.…”