Direct Realism and Hallucination

Abstract

Perception provides direct acquaintance with existent physical objects, if direct realism is true. However, hallucination involves perceptual experience of what does not exist. How should a direct realist rendition of perception confront hallucination? Fictivism proposes that the creation of objects of perception is secured by a person’s perception of them. Disjunctivism differentiates hallucination from perception while mistakenly insisting that hallucination is not in the brief of any genuinely coherent theory of perception. Direct realism rejects both fictivism and disjunctivism. Perception only detects and discovers—never creates nor concocts—when it represents its objects. Perception is cognition’s grip on the objectively real. If so, then accounts may be ready at hand to accommodate the likes of perception of the past, inverted and absent phenomenal character, as well as blindsight.