The Argument from Hallucination
Synthesis philosophica November 20, 2025 Ksenija Puškarić
The article defends an argument from hallucination based on the conceivability of philosophical hallucinations that involve no phenomenal difference from genuine perception. It is essentially a thought-experiment argument supporting the thesis that subjective indistinguishability of the two states implies identity of their objects. The author considers counterexamples and disjunctivist objections to this inference and extends the discussion to the conditions involved in imagining philosophical hallucinations. By sufficiently narrowing the 'gap' between the thesis of subjective indistinguishability and the thesis of identity of objects, the author responds to Putnam's objection based on the phenomenal sorites and related problems. A more detailed analysis of the conditions involved in the thought experiment shows that some common objections to the inference from subjective indistinguishability to identity of objects lose their force.