Hallucination: Philosophy and Psychology [MIT Press - 2013]

The traditional problem of hallucination in the philosophy of mind, and more particularly in the philosophy of perception and epistemology, has always attracted attention. However, over the last few years, neuroimaging techniques and scientific findings on the nature of hallucination, together with the upsurge of interest in new theories of perception in philosophy, such as representationalism and disjunctivism, have brought the topic of hallucination to the forefront of philosophical thinking.

The importance of the phenomenon of hallucination is such that it deserves extensive treatment; it directly affects a wide range of issues in the philosophy of perception and epistemology, including the question of whether we directly see the world, the nature of perception and perceptual experience more generally, the nature of our knowledge of our own mental states, the nature of our knowledge of the external world, and questions about what we can learn about the mind and the nature of hallucination from empirical results in psychology and brain science.

Reflection on the nature of hallucination, therefore, has the potential to transform many traditional debates in philosophy concerning the nature of the mind, perception, and our knowledge of the world. It has the potential to radically alter our approach and answers to traditional philosophical concerns about the mind and epistemology.

In addition, it will be of value to scientists who are trying to determine the nature of hallucination in patients undergoing hallucination, and clinical medics who are trying to treat those patients, by clearly articulating and delineating exhaustively different possible conceptions of hallucination. The nature of hallucination is therefore of great philosophical, theoretical, and practical importance. These are the issues that the essays in this book engage with.