Disjunctivism: An Answer to Two Pseudo-Problems?

Summary

Ever since it was discovered that hallucinations and illusions are not all that compatible with our natural view of the relation between the perceiving subject and the perceived object, according to which we always perceive the object itself (or, as most epistemologists prefer to say, we perceive it directly), the philosophical position of Direct (or Na¨ıve) Realism which is meant to be the epistemological equivalent of this view, has begun to falter. To express these problems more explicitly, the argument from hallucination and the argument from illusion were created and brought direct realists in dire need of explaining how phenomena such as hallucinations and illusions could possibly go together with their position. One of the main direct (or na¨ıve) realists’ responses to these arguments is Disjunctivism, a position that, while being able to efficiently deal with both arguments, is subject to quite a few problems in its postulations as well. The intuitive plausibility of both arguments seems to have led many a philosopher to take their validity for granted. Because of this, it will be attempted to give an accurate and adequate reformulation of both arguments in this paper to find out whether their impact on the philosophy of perception is justified in the first place.1