A sense of reality

In Fiona MacPherson & Dimitris Platchias (eds.), Hallucinations. MIT Press. pp. 399-417 (2014)
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Abstract

Hallucinations occur in a wide range of organic and psychological disorders, as well as in a small percentage of the normal population According to usual definitions in psychology and psychiatry, hallucinations are sensory experiences which present things that are not there, but are nonetheless accompanied by a powerful sense of reality. As Richard Bentall puts it, “the illusion of reality ... is the sine qua non of all hallucinatory experiences” (Bentall 1990: 82). The aim of this paper is to find out what lends an experience ‘a sense of reality’: what features are required for an experience to feel ‘real’, in the relevant sense? I will investigate the claim that phenomenological features are largely responsible for a sense of reality, and will find this claim wanting. My suggestion is that a sense of reality is created and sustained by the larger nexus of the subject's beliefs.

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Katalin Farkas
Central European University

Citations of this work

Hallucination and Its Objects.Alex Byrne & Riccardo Manzotti - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (3):327-359.
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The Value of Perception.Keith Allen - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3):633-656.
Everything is clear: All perceptual experiences are transparent.Laura Gow - 2019 - European Journal of Philosophy 27 (2):412-425.

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References found in this work

General Psychopathology.Karl Jaspers - 1913 - Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Perception.Howard Robinson - 1994 - Philosophy 70 (273):463-466.
Perception.Howard Robinson - 1997 - Philosophical Quarterly 47 (188):382-384.
An Experimental Study of Imagination.Charles West Perky - 1911 - Philosophical Review 20:108.

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