Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199738946
- eISBN:
- 9780199866175
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738946.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, ...
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Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized nonexistent objects to which our scientific theories more conveniently apply. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items—especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences—are indispensable. Scientific and ordinary languages allow us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false) such as “Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse,” or “That elf I’m now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes.” Standard contemporary metaphysical views and standard contemporary philosophical semantic analyses of singular idioms have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). This book reconfigures metaphysics and semantics in a radical way to allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial assumption that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.Less
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (with demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized nonexistent objects to which our scientific theories more conveniently apply. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items—especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences—are indispensable. Scientific and ordinary languages allow us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false) such as “Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse,” or “That elf I’m now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes.” Standard contemporary metaphysical views and standard contemporary philosophical semantic analyses of singular idioms have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). This book reconfigures metaphysics and semantics in a radical way to allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial assumption that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.
William Fish
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195381344
- eISBN:
- 9780199869183
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195381344.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book ...
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The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book 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, it contends that the perception of a particular state of affairs involves the subject's being acquainted with that state of affairs, and that it is the subject's standing in this acquaintance relation that makes the experience possess a phenomenal character. It argues that when we hallucinate, we are having an experience that, while lacking phenomenal character, is mistakenly supposed by the subject to possess it and shows how this approach is compatible with empirical research into the workings of the brain. It concludes by offering a novel treatment of the many different types of illusion that we can be subject to, which accounts for many illusions, not as special cases of either veridical perception or hallucination but rather as mixed cases that involve elements of both.Less
The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book 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, it contends that the perception of a particular state of affairs involves the subject's being acquainted with that state of affairs, and that it is the subject's standing in this acquaintance relation that makes the experience possess a phenomenal character. It argues that when we hallucinate, we are having an experience that, while lacking phenomenal character, is mistakenly supposed by the subject to possess it and shows how this approach is compatible with empirical research into the workings of the brain. It concludes by offering a novel treatment of the many different types of illusion that we can be subject to, which accounts for many illusions, not as special cases of either veridical perception or hallucination but rather as mixed cases that involve elements of both.
John Foster
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198237693
- eISBN:
- 9780191597442
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237693.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Strong direct realism (SDR) has the resources to meet the Causal Argument from hallucination, which I once thought decisive. But it fails for a different reason. When a physical item is Φ‐terminally ...
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Strong direct realism (SDR) has the resources to meet the Causal Argument from hallucination, which I once thought decisive. But it fails for a different reason. When a physical item is Φ‐terminally perceived, it sensibly appears to the subject in a certain way. Or put the other way round, the subject perceives the item in a certain phenomenal manner. I call this ‘phenomenal manner of perceiving phenomenal content’. Like any other theory of perception, SDR has to be able to give an adequate account of what phenomenal content is and how it relates to the securing of perceptual contact with the relevant physical item. There are three options here for SDR. The first is what I call ‘the presentational view’. This holds that the qualitative ingredients of phenomenal content are directly drawn from the physical items Φ‐terminally perceived, so that when a physical item sensibly appears to a subject to possess a certain quality Q, the featuring of Q in the phenomenal content of the perception is the featuring of the very instance of Q that occurs in the physical item itself. The second option is what I call ‘the internalist view’. This holds that, although the Φ‐terminal perceptual relationship with the physical item is something psychologically fundamental, and phenomenal content is the manner in which this relationship holds, the qualitative ingredients of such content are ontologically separate from their physical counterparts, so that the featuring of a quality in such content is not the featuring of some physical instance of it. The third option is what I call the ‘modified presentational view’, which holds that the featuring of a quality in phenomenal content is sometimes to be construed in a presentational way, and sometimes in an internalist way. The presentational view fails because it does not accommodate cases of non‐veridical perception, in which the sensible appearance of the perceived item is at variance with its actual character. The modified presentational view fails because of its hybrid character; for once the need for an internalist account is recognized for cases of non‐veridical perception, there is irresistible pressure to extend the same treatment to veridical perception too. And the internalist view fails because it does not permit a coherent account of how perceptual contact and phenomenal content fit together. Since all three options fail, and since there is no other remotely plausible account available to it, SDR must be rejected.Less
Strong direct realism (SDR) has the resources to meet the Causal Argument from hallucination, which I once thought decisive. But it fails for a different reason. When a physical item is Φ‐terminally perceived, it sensibly appears to the subject in a certain way. Or put the other way round, the subject perceives the item in a certain phenomenal manner. I call this ‘phenomenal manner of perceiving phenomenal content’. Like any other theory of perception, SDR has to be able to give an adequate account of what phenomenal content is and how it relates to the securing of perceptual contact with the relevant physical item. There are three options here for SDR. The first is what I call ‘the presentational view’. This holds that the qualitative ingredients of phenomenal content are directly drawn from the physical items Φ‐terminally perceived, so that when a physical item sensibly appears to a subject to possess a certain quality Q, the featuring of Q in the phenomenal content of the perception is the featuring of the very instance of Q that occurs in the physical item itself. The second option is what I call ‘the internalist view’. This holds that, although the Φ‐terminal perceptual relationship with the physical item is something psychologically fundamental, and phenomenal content is the manner in which this relationship holds, the qualitative ingredients of such content are ontologically separate from their physical counterparts, so that the featuring of a quality in such content is not the featuring of some physical instance of it. The third option is what I call the ‘modified presentational view’, which holds that the featuring of a quality in phenomenal content is sometimes to be construed in a presentational way, and sometimes in an internalist way. The presentational view fails because it does not accommodate cases of non‐veridical perception, in which the sensible appearance of the perceived item is at variance with its actual character. The modified presentational view fails because of its hybrid character; for once the need for an internalist account is recognized for cases of non‐veridical perception, there is irresistible pressure to extend the same treatment to veridical perception too. And the internalist view fails because it does not permit a coherent account of how perceptual contact and phenomenal content fit together. Since all three options fail, and since there is no other remotely plausible account available to it, SDR must be rejected.
Bill Brewer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199260256
- eISBN:
- 9780191725470
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260256.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should ...
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This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should we best understand the nature of our basic perceptual relation with the physical objects in the world around us? Most theorists today analyze perception in terms of its representational content, in large part in order to avoid fatal problems attending the early modern conception of perception as a relation with particular mind-dependent direct objects of experience. Having set up the underlying problem and explored the lessons to be learnt from the various difficulties faced by opposing early modern responses to it, it is argued that this contemporary approach has serious problems of its own. Furthermore, the early modern insight that perception is most fundamentally to be construed as a relation of conscious acquaintance with certain direct objects of experience is perfectly consistent with the commonsense identification of such direct objects with persisting mind-independent physical objects themselves. The resultant picture of perception as acquaintance from a given point of view and in certain specific circumstances with particular mind-independent physical objects offers a rich and nuanced account of the various ways such things look in perception that also accommodates illusion and hallucination. This solution is proposed and elaborated as the most satisfactory and defensible vindication of empirical realism.Less
This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should we best understand the nature of our basic perceptual relation with the physical objects in the world around us? Most theorists today analyze perception in terms of its representational content, in large part in order to avoid fatal problems attending the early modern conception of perception as a relation with particular mind-dependent direct objects of experience. Having set up the underlying problem and explored the lessons to be learnt from the various difficulties faced by opposing early modern responses to it, it is argued that this contemporary approach has serious problems of its own. Furthermore, the early modern insight that perception is most fundamentally to be construed as a relation of conscious acquaintance with certain direct objects of experience is perfectly consistent with the commonsense identification of such direct objects with persisting mind-independent physical objects themselves. The resultant picture of perception as acquaintance from a given point of view and in certain specific circumstances with particular mind-independent physical objects offers a rich and nuanced account of the various ways such things look in perception that also accommodates illusion and hallucination. This solution is proposed and elaborated as the most satisfactory and defensible vindication of empirical realism.
Timothy Williamson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195311952
- eISBN:
- 9780199871070
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311952.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter critically appraises Audi's theory of normative grounds for belief and action, focusing on the theory's commitment to access and supervenience internalism. It considers Audi's response ...
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This chapter critically appraises Audi's theory of normative grounds for belief and action, focusing on the theory's commitment to access and supervenience internalism. It considers Audi's response to two standard objections to internalism about justification—one objection based on content externalism and the other objection concerning memory-based belief—and argues that the objections still do serious damage to internalism. It also considers and criticizes Audi's positive case for internalism, focusing on two arguments: one argument concerning the “availability” of justifiers and the other concerning ‘cases of perfect hallucination’. The chapter concludes that an externalist theory can accommodate Audi's insights and avoid the problems faced by internalist theories.Less
This chapter critically appraises Audi's theory of normative grounds for belief and action, focusing on the theory's commitment to access and supervenience internalism. It considers Audi's response to two standard objections to internalism about justification—one objection based on content externalism and the other objection concerning memory-based belief—and argues that the objections still do serious damage to internalism. It also considers and criticizes Audi's positive case for internalism, focusing on two arguments: one argument concerning the “availability” of justifiers and the other concerning ‘cases of perfect hallucination’. The chapter concludes that an externalist theory can accommodate Audi's insights and avoid the problems faced by internalist theories.
Jody Azzouni
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199738946
- eISBN:
- 9780199866175
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738946.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
It’s common to think that demonstrations require something (that exists) that’s demonstrated. If, because of hallucination, there is no object, then the demonstration—and what’s said—is seen by some ...
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It’s common to think that demonstrations require something (that exists) that’s demonstrated. If, because of hallucination, there is no object, then the demonstration—and what’s said—is seen by some to fail to express anything. One can pretend (in the case where one is aware that one is hallucinating) that one is pointing at something, and others can pretend to understand what the hallucinator is talking about. This chapter shows that this way of thinking about hallucinations is wrong by developing at length a series of thought experiments that show how natural and cogent demonstrations are in hallucinatory contexts. Gareth Evans’s careful discussion of this matter is analyzed. Pretence approaches to singular hallucinatory talk are undercut by the external discourse demand, and by quantifying-in requirements on that discourse. The chapter also discusses how identity conditions for hallucinated objects can be cogent, and the argument from hallucination.Less
It’s common to think that demonstrations require something (that exists) that’s demonstrated. If, because of hallucination, there is no object, then the demonstration—and what’s said—is seen by some to fail to express anything. One can pretend (in the case where one is aware that one is hallucinating) that one is pointing at something, and others can pretend to understand what the hallucinator is talking about. This chapter shows that this way of thinking about hallucinations is wrong by developing at length a series of thought experiments that show how natural and cogent demonstrations are in hallucinatory contexts. Gareth Evans’s careful discussion of this matter is analyzed. Pretence approaches to singular hallucinatory talk are undercut by the external discourse demand, and by quantifying-in requirements on that discourse. The chapter also discusses how identity conditions for hallucinated objects can be cogent, and the argument from hallucination.
Anna Powell
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632824
- eISBN:
- 9780748651139
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632824.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant ...
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This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant neurological, psychological and philosophical experiences. Chapters engage with films that simultaneously present and induce altered consciousness, and consider dream states and the popularisation of alterity in drugs films. The altered bodies of erotic arousal and trance states are explored, using haptics and synaesthesia. Cinematic distortions of space and time, as well as new digital and fractal directions, are opened up. The text's distinctive re-mapping of the film experience as altered state uses a Deleuzian approach to explore how cinema alters us by ‘affective contamination’. Arguing that specific cinematic techniques derange the senses and the mind, the author makes an assemblage of philosophy and art, counter-cultural writers and filmmakers to provide insights into the cinematic event as intoxication. The book applies Deleuze, alone and with Guattari, to mainstream films such as Donnie Darko, as well as arthouse and experimental cinema. Offering innovative readings of ‘classic’ altered states movies such as 2001, Performance and Easy Rider, it includes ‘avant-garde’ and ‘underground’ work. The book asserts the Deleuzian approach as itself a kind of altered state that explodes habitual ways of thinking and feeling.Less
This book offers a typology of altered states, defining dream, hallucination, memory, trance and ecstasy in their cinematic expression, and presenting altered states films as significant neurological, psychological and philosophical experiences. Chapters engage with films that simultaneously present and induce altered consciousness, and consider dream states and the popularisation of alterity in drugs films. The altered bodies of erotic arousal and trance states are explored, using haptics and synaesthesia. Cinematic distortions of space and time, as well as new digital and fractal directions, are opened up. The text's distinctive re-mapping of the film experience as altered state uses a Deleuzian approach to explore how cinema alters us by ‘affective contamination’. Arguing that specific cinematic techniques derange the senses and the mind, the author makes an assemblage of philosophy and art, counter-cultural writers and filmmakers to provide insights into the cinematic event as intoxication. The book applies Deleuze, alone and with Guattari, to mainstream films such as Donnie Darko, as well as arthouse and experimental cinema. Offering innovative readings of ‘classic’ altered states movies such as 2001, Performance and Easy Rider, it includes ‘avant-garde’ and ‘underground’ work. The book asserts the Deleuzian approach as itself a kind of altered state that explodes habitual ways of thinking and feeling.
Micaela Janan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199556922
- eISBN:
- 9780191721021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199556922.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Ovid paints Thebes as a series of surrealistic vignettes in which the size, the form, and the very nature of things shift for no apparent reason (Met. 3–4). This welter of phantasmata is nothing ...
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Ovid paints Thebes as a series of surrealistic vignettes in which the size, the form, and the very nature of things shift for no apparent reason (Met. 3–4). This welter of phantasmata is nothing short of hallucinatory. Using Lacan's theory of hallucinations as symptomatic of a social and symbolic crisis, this chapter traces these uncanny visions to Thebes' first cause: King Agenor of Tyre. Agenor commanded his son Cadmus to ‘find your sister Europa (Zeus' abductee) or remain in exile’ failing, Cadmus founds Thebes. Agenor's harsh authority as both king and father make him dutiful and.criminal by the same act (Met. 3.3–5): cruelty toward Cadmus contradicts his fatherly devotion to Europa. Agenor thus, disturbs the conceptual foundations of family and social law, the very basis of an ordered human community like Thebes. Such self‐contradiction baffles the desire to become the ‘dutiful son/good citizen’ by obeying. A crisis in law and the lawgiver spark Thebes and its hallucinations.Less
Ovid paints Thebes as a series of surrealistic vignettes in which the size, the form, and the very nature of things shift for no apparent reason (Met. 3–4). This welter of phantasmata is nothing short of hallucinatory. Using Lacan's theory of hallucinations as symptomatic of a social and symbolic crisis, this chapter traces these uncanny visions to Thebes' first cause: King Agenor of Tyre. Agenor commanded his son Cadmus to ‘find your sister Europa (Zeus' abductee) or remain in exile’ failing, Cadmus founds Thebes. Agenor's harsh authority as both king and father make him dutiful and.criminal by the same act (Met. 3.3–5): cruelty toward Cadmus contradicts his fatherly devotion to Europa. Agenor thus, disturbs the conceptual foundations of family and social law, the very basis of an ordered human community like Thebes. Such self‐contradiction baffles the desire to become the ‘dutiful son/good citizen’ by obeying. A crisis in law and the lawgiver spark Thebes and its hallucinations.
Bill Brewer
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231546
- eISBN:
- 9780191716126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231546.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Early modern empiricists think of perceptual experience as the presentation of an object to a subject. Phenomena of illusion suggest that such objects must be mind dependent things. Alternatively, ...
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Early modern empiricists think of perceptual experience as the presentation of an object to a subject. Phenomena of illusion suggest that such objects must be mind dependent things. Alternatively, perceptual experience may be characterized instead in terms of its representational content (this is the Content View). In that case, illusion is simply false perceptual content. This chapter argues that the early modern empiricists had a key insight: the idea that the core subjective character of perceptual experience to be given by citing the object presented is more fundamental than any appeal to perceptual content, and can account for illusion, and indeed hallucination, without resorting to the problematic postulation of any mind-independent objects distinct from the mind-independent physical objects we all know and love (this is the Object View). It is also suggested that the Object View provides a more promising context for the basic commitments of disjunctivism than the current orthodoxy of the Content View.Less
Early modern empiricists think of perceptual experience as the presentation of an object to a subject. Phenomena of illusion suggest that such objects must be mind dependent things. Alternatively, perceptual experience may be characterized instead in terms of its representational content (this is the Content View). In that case, illusion is simply false perceptual content. This chapter argues that the early modern empiricists had a key insight: the idea that the core subjective character of perceptual experience to be given by citing the object presented is more fundamental than any appeal to perceptual content, and can account for illusion, and indeed hallucination, without resorting to the problematic postulation of any mind-independent objects distinct from the mind-independent physical objects we all know and love (this is the Object View). It is also suggested that the Object View provides a more promising context for the basic commitments of disjunctivism than the current orthodoxy of the Content View.
A. D. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231546
- eISBN:
- 9780191716126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231546.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Disjunctivists typically claim that something is a hallucination if it is an experience that is not a perception, but that the subject cannot tell, just in virtue of having the experience and ...
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Disjunctivists typically claim that something is a hallucination if it is an experience that is not a perception, but that the subject cannot tell, just in virtue of having the experience and ‘introspecting’ it, whether it is not a perception. This chapter argues that there are states that are not hallucinations, as this term is usually understood, but that meet the condition of being thus subjectively indiscriminable from perception. Such states are not hallucinations, since they are not even sensory in character. A modification to the condition is finally introduced that improves matters, but does not entirely avoid counter-examples. In the course of the chapter a position that is termed ‘extreme disjunctivism’ is discussed. This position is particularly unfitted to accommodate the counter-examples.Less
Disjunctivists typically claim that something is a hallucination if it is an experience that is not a perception, but that the subject cannot tell, just in virtue of having the experience and ‘introspecting’ it, whether it is not a perception. This chapter argues that there are states that are not hallucinations, as this term is usually understood, but that meet the condition of being thus subjectively indiscriminable from perception. Such states are not hallucinations, since they are not even sensory in character. A modification to the condition is finally introduced that improves matters, but does not entirely avoid counter-examples. In the course of the chapter a position that is termed ‘extreme disjunctivism’ is discussed. This position is particularly unfitted to accommodate the counter-examples.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines the texts of Moreau de Tours, Gautier, and Baudelaire. The word ‘paradise’ was common to Gautier, Baudelaire, and Moreau de Tours, but the nature of the texts they wrote all ...
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This chapter examines the texts of Moreau de Tours, Gautier, and Baudelaire. The word ‘paradise’ was common to Gautier, Baudelaire, and Moreau de Tours, but the nature of the texts they wrote all called the notion into question in one way or another. Moreau was preoccupied with the dream-state as revealing the nature of mental illness, and many of the case histories in his book are far from paradisiacal. Gautier begins ‘Le Club des hachichins’ with a phrase about paradise pronounced by ‘the Doctor’, but the paradise experience is counterbalanced by a nightmare. Baudelaire could not utter the word paradise without, as it were, saying enfer under his breath.Less
This chapter examines the texts of Moreau de Tours, Gautier, and Baudelaire. The word ‘paradise’ was common to Gautier, Baudelaire, and Moreau de Tours, but the nature of the texts they wrote all called the notion into question in one way or another. Moreau was preoccupied with the dream-state as revealing the nature of mental illness, and many of the case histories in his book are far from paradisiacal. Gautier begins ‘Le Club des hachichins’ with a phrase about paradise pronounced by ‘the Doctor’, but the paradise experience is counterbalanced by a nightmare. Baudelaire could not utter the word paradise without, as it were, saying enfer under his breath.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
Gérard de Nerval died on 26 January 1855, at a time when the question of hallucination was about to be highlighted in psychiatric debate. In 1856, Lélut republished his Du démon de Socrate with a ...
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Gérard de Nerval died on 26 January 1855, at a time when the question of hallucination was about to be highlighted in psychiatric debate. In 1856, Lélut republished his Du démon de Socrate with a long, eloquent, polemical preface which gave a sense of how some issues were perceived in the public arena. A more specialized, but still wide-ranging debate took place at meetings of the Société medico-psychologique in 1855 and 1856, and became famous in the annals of French psychiatry. This chapter first looks at Lélut's new preface and then at these debates. The chief focus of both is still the question whether hallucination is compatible with reason. The discussions at the Sociéte medico-psychologique, however, show the beginnings of a shift towards reflection upon creative processes.Less
Gérard de Nerval died on 26 January 1855, at a time when the question of hallucination was about to be highlighted in psychiatric debate. In 1856, Lélut republished his Du démon de Socrate with a long, eloquent, polemical preface which gave a sense of how some issues were perceived in the public arena. A more specialized, but still wide-ranging debate took place at meetings of the Société medico-psychologique in 1855 and 1856, and became famous in the annals of French psychiatry. This chapter first looks at Lélut's new preface and then at these debates. The chief focus of both is still the question whether hallucination is compatible with reason. The discussions at the Sociéte medico-psychologique, however, show the beginnings of a shift towards reflection upon creative processes.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This chapter provides an introduction to Part III of the book. The Sociéte medico-psychologique addressed one precise issue in the context of their debate about hallucination. This was the relation ...
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This chapter provides an introduction to Part III of the book. The Sociéte medico-psychologique addressed one precise issue in the context of their debate about hallucination. This was the relation of hallucination to that capacity for visualization or internal audition which some saw as a necessary preliminary to the creative act. The focus of the discussion, however, was not creative processes as such, but rather the normality or abnormality of vivid mental pictures and their place on a continuum which had hallucination as one of its extremes. It was nevertheless this aspect of the discussions which gave rise to further developments. This chapter presents these briefly, before introducing Chapters 14–17.Less
This chapter provides an introduction to Part III of the book. The Sociéte medico-psychologique addressed one precise issue in the context of their debate about hallucination. This was the relation of hallucination to that capacity for visualization or internal audition which some saw as a necessary preliminary to the creative act. The focus of the discussion, however, was not creative processes as such, but rather the normality or abnormality of vivid mental pictures and their place on a continuum which had hallucination as one of its extremes. It was nevertheless this aspect of the discussions which gave rise to further developments. This chapter presents these briefly, before introducing Chapters 14–17.
W. Burke
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780198528999
- eISBN:
- 9780191723926
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528999.003.0002
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Disorders of the Nervous System
This chapter considers the consequences of retinal lesions and discusses the controversies surrounding retinal lesioning techniques. The perceptual consequences of these techniques are described ...
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This chapter considers the consequences of retinal lesions and discusses the controversies surrounding retinal lesioning techniques. The perceptual consequences of these techniques are described including hallucinations and perceptual ‘filling-in’. It also discusses the mechanisms of neural circuitry generating these disturbances.Less
This chapter considers the consequences of retinal lesions and discusses the controversies surrounding retinal lesioning techniques. The perceptual consequences of these techniques are described including hallucinations and perceptual ‘filling-in’. It also discusses the mechanisms of neural circuitry generating these disturbances.
R. M. Sainsbury and Michael Tye
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695317
- eISBN:
- 9780191738531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695317.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
This chapter applies originalism to three further problems: the content of hallucinatory experience, the epistemic role of perception, and arguments against physicalism based on conceivability ...
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This chapter applies originalism to three further problems: the content of hallucinatory experience, the epistemic role of perception, and arguments against physicalism based on conceivability (especially zombie-based arguments).Less
This chapter applies originalism to three further problems: the content of hallucinatory experience, the epistemic role of perception, and arguments against physicalism based on conceivability (especially zombie-based arguments).
Jennifer M. Windt
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262028677
- eISBN:
- 9780262327466
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262028677.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Are dreams conscious experiences occurring during sleep? What exactly would it mean to say that they are? How does the concept of dreaming fit into the framework of concepts commonly used to describe ...
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Are dreams conscious experiences occurring during sleep? What exactly would it mean to say that they are? How does the concept of dreaming fit into the framework of concepts commonly used to describe conscious wake states? And how can the analysis of dreaming inform a philosophical theory of subjective experience and self-consciousness? The book proposes a conceptual framework for describing conscious experience in dreams and sketches preliminary answers to these – and many more - questions along the way. In doing so, it draws from different sources, of which the most important are the discussion of dreaming in the history of Western philosophy; contemporary philosophical work on dreaming; scientific research on sleep and dreaming; and scientific research on related areas such as mind wandering, bodily experience, full-body illusions, delusions, and self-consciousness. Its primary aim is to (re)locate the concept of dreaming on the map of concepts commonly used to describe standard and altered wake states and to shed light on the relationship between dreaming and waking perception, but also between dreaming and imagining, mind wandering, and delusions. A secondary aim is to provide an introduction to the philosophical discussion on dreaming and scientific dream research. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the philosophical discussion on dreaming in different historical periods, theoretical contexts and philosophical subdisciplines. It also investigates how the philosophical discussion of dreaming and scientific dream research have mutually influenced each other since the discovery of REM sleep.Less
Are dreams conscious experiences occurring during sleep? What exactly would it mean to say that they are? How does the concept of dreaming fit into the framework of concepts commonly used to describe conscious wake states? And how can the analysis of dreaming inform a philosophical theory of subjective experience and self-consciousness? The book proposes a conceptual framework for describing conscious experience in dreams and sketches preliminary answers to these – and many more - questions along the way. In doing so, it draws from different sources, of which the most important are the discussion of dreaming in the history of Western philosophy; contemporary philosophical work on dreaming; scientific research on sleep and dreaming; and scientific research on related areas such as mind wandering, bodily experience, full-body illusions, delusions, and self-consciousness. Its primary aim is to (re)locate the concept of dreaming on the map of concepts commonly used to describe standard and altered wake states and to shed light on the relationship between dreaming and waking perception, but also between dreaming and imagining, mind wandering, and delusions. A secondary aim is to provide an introduction to the philosophical discussion on dreaming and scientific dream research. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the philosophical discussion on dreaming in different historical periods, theoretical contexts and philosophical subdisciplines. It also investigates how the philosophical discussion of dreaming and scientific dream research have mutually influenced each other since the discovery of REM sleep.
Aaron Zimmerman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199744794
- eISBN:
- 9780199933396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744794.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
According to metaphysical disjunctivists, veridical visual experience and hallucination do not have a common nature. The chapter argues that disjunctivism so defined is incompatible with common sense ...
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According to metaphysical disjunctivists, veridical visual experience and hallucination do not have a common nature. The chapter argues that disjunctivism so defined is incompatible with common sense views of introspection and psychological explanation. The preponderance of evidence therefore points away from metaphysical disjunctivism toward a view on which hallucinatory and veridical visual experiences are representations of a common kind. To focus the discussion, the arguments are directed at the metaphysical form of disjunctivism defended by Michael Martin (2006).Less
According to metaphysical disjunctivists, veridical visual experience and hallucination do not have a common nature. The chapter argues that disjunctivism so defined is incompatible with common sense views of introspection and psychological explanation. The preponderance of evidence therefore points away from metaphysical disjunctivism toward a view on which hallucinatory and veridical visual experiences are representations of a common kind. To focus the discussion, the arguments are directed at the metaphysical form of disjunctivism defended by Michael Martin (2006).
Christoph Turcke and Susan Gillespie
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300188400
- eISBN:
- 9780300199123
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300188400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology
Why has humankind developed so differently from other animals? How and why did language, culture, religion, and the arts come into being? This book offers a new answer to these time-worn questions by ...
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Why has humankind developed so differently from other animals? How and why did language, culture, religion, and the arts come into being? This book offers a new answer to these time-worn questions by scrutinizing the phenomenon of the dream, using it as a psychic fossil connecting us with our Stone Age ancestors. It argues that both civilization and mental processes are the results of a compulsion to repeat early traumas, one to which hallucination, imagination, mind, spirit, and God all developed in response. Until the beginning of the modern era, repetition was synonymous with de-escalation and calming down. Then, automatic machinery gave rise to a new type of repetition, whose effects are permanent alarm and distraction. The new global forces of distraction, the book argues, are producing a specific kind of stress that breaks down the barriers between dreams and waking consciousness. The book ends with a sobering indictment of this psychic deregulation and the social and economic deregulations that have accompanied it.Less
Why has humankind developed so differently from other animals? How and why did language, culture, religion, and the arts come into being? This book offers a new answer to these time-worn questions by scrutinizing the phenomenon of the dream, using it as a psychic fossil connecting us with our Stone Age ancestors. It argues that both civilization and mental processes are the results of a compulsion to repeat early traumas, one to which hallucination, imagination, mind, spirit, and God all developed in response. Until the beginning of the modern era, repetition was synonymous with de-escalation and calming down. Then, automatic machinery gave rise to a new type of repetition, whose effects are permanent alarm and distraction. The new global forces of distraction, the book argues, are producing a specific kind of stress that breaks down the barriers between dreams and waking consciousness. The book ends with a sobering indictment of this psychic deregulation and the social and economic deregulations that have accompanied it.
Tony James
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151883
- eISBN:
- 9780191672873
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151883.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, European Literature
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of ...
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This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.Less
This is an important new analysis of the problematic relationship between dreams and madness as perceived by 19th-century French writers, thinkers, and doctors. Those wishing to know the nature of madness, wrote Voltaire, should observe their dreams. The relationship between the dream-state and madness is a key theme of 19th-century European, and specifically French, thought. The meaning of dreams and associated phenomena such as somnambulism, ecstasy, and hallucinations (including those induced by hashish) preoccupied writers, philosophers, and psychiatrists. This book shows how doctors (such as Esquirol, Lélut, and Janet), thinkers (including Maine de Biran and Taine), and writers (for example, Balzac, Nerval, Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, and Rimbaud) grappled in very different ways with the problems raised by the so-called ‘phenomena of sleep’. Were historical figures such as Socrates or Pascal in fact mad? Might dreaming be a source of creativity, rather than a merely subsidiary, ‘automatic’ function? What of lucid dreaming? By exploring these questions, this book makes good a considerable gap in the history of pre-Freudian psychology.
R. Walter Heinrichs
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195122190
- eISBN:
- 9780199865482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195122190.003.0002
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience
This chapter analyzes the symptoms of schizophrenia, focusing on the “positive”triad of hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder. Studies have shed light on the mental processes that mediate ...
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This chapter analyzes the symptoms of schizophrenia, focusing on the “positive”triad of hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder. Studies have shed light on the mental processes that mediate positive symptoms. The range of processes includes several forms of altered cognitive monitoring, the mind failing to supervise itself, plus a possible breakdown in attention. In addition, abnormally enhanced sensitivity to word meanings and relationships and a kind of impulsive tendency to construct meanings or make decisions too quickly appear to be involved in positive symptoms. Finally, some symptoms arise in conjunction with a bias in understanding the social world, a bias that places a negative value on the actions and motives of other people.Less
This chapter analyzes the symptoms of schizophrenia, focusing on the “positive”triad of hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder. Studies have shed light on the mental processes that mediate positive symptoms. The range of processes includes several forms of altered cognitive monitoring, the mind failing to supervise itself, plus a possible breakdown in attention. In addition, abnormally enhanced sensitivity to word meanings and relationships and a kind of impulsive tendency to construct meanings or make decisions too quickly appear to be involved in positive symptoms. Finally, some symptoms arise in conjunction with a bias in understanding the social world, a bias that places a negative value on the actions and motives of other people.
