Relationism and a robust account of hallucinations

Abstract

The epistemic account of hallucination is defended by Michael Martin as the only plausible account of nonveridical experiences for Relationism. Martin’s account consists in two proposals. The first alleges that no underlying metaphysical or phenomenological account of hallucination can be given independently from how hallucinations are presented to us in introspection—broadly construed to include higher order introspective belief and first-order conscious awareness. The second proposes to account for hallucination with a brute epistemic condition of being indiscriminable from a matching veridical experience. This essay defends a disjunctivist treatment of hallucination that rejects both of Martin’s proposals. It argues for a classificatory strategy available for Naïve Realists to reconcile Relationism with a robust phenomenological account of hallucinations.