Perception, Hallucination, and Illusion [Paperback]

The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J.M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 bookExperiences. In the first monograph in this exciting area since then, William Fish develops a comprehensive disjunctive theory, incorporating detailed accounts of the three core kinds of visual experience--perception, hallucination, and illusion--and an explanation of how perception and hallucination could be indiscriminable from one another without having anything in common. In the veridical case, Fish contends that the perception of a particular state of affairs involves the subject's beingacquaintedwith that state of affairs, and that it is the subject's standing in this acquaintance relation that makes the experience possess a phenomenal character. Fish argues that when we hallucinate, we are having an experience that, while lacking phenomenal character, is mistakenly supposed by the subject to possess it. Fish then shows how this approach to visual experience is compatible with empirical research into the workings of the brain and concludes by extending this treatment to cover the many different types of illusion that we can be subject to.

Na?ve Realism: The Theory and its Motivations

Na?ve Realism: Past and Future

Perception

Hallucination

Consciousness and the Brain

Illusion

InPerception, Hallucination, and Illusion, Fish does an admirable job of summarizing the current state of the debate about Na?ve Realism, as well as advancing the dialectic beyond that state. Most importantly, he identifies a promising yet hitherto overlooked motivation for Na?ve Realism, one which should bring even Naive Realism's most trenchant critics to admit that the view is worth taking seriously. ... In short, anyone on either side of the debate over Na?ve Realism, and those wanting to learn what all the fuss is about, would do well to study Fish's book closely. --PhilosophicalBolóÝ