The Philosophy and Psychology of Hallucination: An Introduction

Abstract

This first chapter introduces the topics to be discussed in this book. Few phenomena have played such a vital role in shaping philosophical theories as hallucination, especially theories in the areas of the philosophy of mind, perception, and epistemology. The traditional philosophical conception includes perceptual experiences, identical in nature to experiences that could be had while perceiving the world, except only that they are had while not perceiving. Two emerging strands of research have brought to light different conceptions of hallucination. One of these is scientific evidence about people who actually hallucinate. Evidence from psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry has shed light on the functional role and physiology of actual hallucinations. The second strand is the development of a philosophical theory of perception known as disjunctivism. Some disjunctivist theories have as part of their ontology a radically new and different conception of hallucination. It is with these issues this book engages. Show more