Abstract
There is currently no consensus about a general account of hallucination and its object. The problem of hallucination has de facto generated contrasting accounts of perception, led to opposing epistemic and metaphysical positions, and, most significantly, exposed a manifold of diverging views concerning the intentionality of experience, in general, and perceptual intentionality, in particular. In this article, I aim to clarify the controversial status, experiential possibility, and intentional structure of hallucination qua distinctive phenomenon. The analysis will first detect a phenomenological, Husserlian-informed concept of hallucination in its irreducibility to other kinds and modes of sensory experience. This will set the theoretical basis to develop an account of hallucination by means of a morphological description of those diversified structures of intentional consciousness that lend themselves to generate hallucinatory appearances. I will then describe both the turning of certain kinds of intentional experience into hallucinatory perceptions and the status of hallucinatory objects. This will support the possibility of hallucination in a strict and rigorous sense, elucidate the enigmatic claim that ‘in hallucination we are conscious of something while nothing truly appears,’ and offer a seminal perspective concerning the alleged problem that hallucinations pose on perceptual intentionality. With the aid of some crucial distinctions, I will then argue that hallucinations do not affect perceptual intentionality as a dyadic, relational structure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
A minimal version of disjunctivism may concede that veridical (v) and illusory (i) cases share a common mental core but rejects the idea that hallucination (H) falls into the fundamental kind of genuine perception (P). Accordingly, in contrast to conjunctivism that considers perception to include veridical, illusory, and hallucinatory episodes [P = (v, i, h)], a minimal version of disjunctivism contends that: (vP ∧ iP) ∨ H. For an overview of the conjunctivism-disjunctivist controversy, see Haddock and Macpherson (2008), and Byrne and Logue (2009).
Here and in what follows I use the term ‘thing’ in its general meaning, and not as Husserl’s technical expression (Ding) that indicates the specific material-ontological domain of causal-material substantial unities (see Sect. 4.2 below).
The word ‘hallucination’ probably comes from the Ancient Greek ἀλύω that, in earlier times, indicated the state of ‘being deeply stirred,’ ‘moved,’ ‘restless’ (from grief, despair, excitement, etc.) and, later, meant ‘to wander’ or ‘roam about,’ from which the Latin term alucinari took one of its meanings: ‘to wander in the mind.’ See also the considerations in Sect. 4.2.
The German pagination is followed by the English pagination of the corresponding translation. When no English pagination is given, the translation of Husserl’s texts is my own.
Drummond (2013) provides convincing arguments to support this interpretation.
“In Displacing, an aspect of experience that is taken to be presenting a non-existent object is redescribed as misrepresenting a property of a perceived external concrete particular. The redescription turns what we regard as a hallucination into an illusion” (Masrour, 2020, p. 743).
Properly examined, the misidentification is not a mere case of ‘perceptual’ misrecognition. It is rather an illusion characterized by the illegitimate thetic positing of a fictum (i.e., the depicted ‘human being’) as actually existing. Accordingly, this empirical illusion is generated by the turning of perceptual fantasy into sense perception.
See also Sect. 4.2 below.
For the broader, heterogenous distinction of intuitive consciousness in actually experiencing and quasi-experiecing acts, see Husserl (1980, pp. 504/605).
Obviously, the fact that Husserl describes ‘reproductive modification’ in terms of ‘presentification of a presenting act’ is not in contrast to what has been shown above: namely, that in the complete structure of presentifying reproductive consciouness what is presentified is the cogitatum, and not the reproduced cogitatio (see also Sect. 3.2 below).
Likewise, if through an intuitive consciousness of expectation (Erwartung) something were impressionally given to me not in the temporal mode of the future but as actually being now, I would see the future as present. I would have something akin to a prophetic vision.
This does not entail, however, that what is presentified is a replica of what was perceived (i.e., the object intended), that is, an image of the object and not the object itself.
“The fantasized object is impossible as a unity coexisting with what is present—not only objectively impossible, but also, as characterized phenomenologically, incompatible with it. What appears in the manner peculiar to fantasy is therefore not present” (Husserl, 1980, pp. 67–68/73; translation modified, emphases added).
Memory is here intended as ‘secondary memory’ and not as ‘primary memory’ or retention. To claim that the intentional structure of retentional consciousness lends itself to veer into hallucinatory perception is indeed phenomenologically absurd. Such a claim would only stem from a profound misunderstanding of retention as well as its relation to perceptual consciousness and its role in the constitution of the living present.
See Sect. 2.2 above.
In a moment of intense ‘immersion,’ for instance, a person endowed with a vivid imagination can be terrorized by the products of her own fantasy.
As empirically demonstrated by pathological cases, states of ‘complete absorption’ can result in the subject’s inability to recognize the hallucinatory character of the experience. Here, one can legitimately assume that the hallucination is not, has never been, and hypothetically will never be subjectively identified as such by the concrete ego that is taken in by the hallucinatory experience. Yet, this experience is a hallucination through and through and, phenomenologically considered, must be properly described as an ‘annulled or invalid perception’ (see Sect. 1 above). As extensively discussed in Cimino (2021 in particular, pp. 766–770), the factual impossibility of an empirical ego to discern between veridical, illusory, and hallucinatory experience is perfectly compatible with the crucial insight according to which, as a matter of principle, no phenomenological discourse about truly existing, illusory, or hallucinatory objects could maintain its intelligibility if detached from a description of the synthetic, rational processes of validation or invalidation occurring in immanent consciousness. The hallucinatory character of experience is necessarily linked to the devaluating and annulling processes performed by an actual consciousness which, however, does not need to be the one that undergoes the hallucination. Moreover, to say that the ego can be ‘completely absorbed’ in fantasy does not amount to claim that the real world is completely lost or entirely swallowed up in fantasy.
In this way, the analysis supports the claims in Drummond (2015, pp. 260–261). The dyadic structure of perceptual intentionality should be properly understood in light of both the relation and the distinction between the noema as ‘transcendence in immanence’ (e.g., the ‘perceived-tree qua perceived’) and the object as ontic-existential transcendence (e.g., the tree simpliciter as really existing in nature) which exclude the presence of a mediating, intensional entity and also prevent one from considering the noematic content as an independent, third relatum (see, for instance, Husserl, 1976, pp. 205/177, and my analysis below). See also the Conclusion below.
See also Sect. 2.2 above.
This is, instead, constitutive for the metaphysical sense of hallucinations: see the analysis below.
For Husserl’s conception of reason, see Cimino (2020).
See footnote 3 above.
References
Aristotle (1955). Aristotle's Parva Naturalia. In W. D. Ross (Ed.). Clarendon Press. Text and translation.
Bower, M. (2020). Husserl on hallucination: A conjunctive reading. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 58(3), 549–579.
Brough, J. (1975). Husserl on memory. The Monist, 59(1), 40–62.
Byrne, A., & Logue, H. (2009). Introduction. In A. Byrne & H. Logue (Eds.), Disjunctivism. Contemporary readings (p. VII–XXIX). MIT Press.
Cimino, A. (2019). The sense of deception: Illusion and hallucination as nullified, invalid perception. Husserl Studies, 35(1), 27–49.
Cimino, A. (2020). Husserl’s project, critique, and idea of reason. Journal of Transcendental Philosophy, 1(2), 183–217.
Cimino, A. (2021). Husserl’s philosophical estrangement from the conjunctivism-disjunctivism debate. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 20, 743–779.
Crane, T. (2005). What is the problem of perception? Synthesis Philosophica, 40(2), 237–264.
Crane, T., & French, C. (2021). The problem of perception. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Springer.
De Warren, N. (2009). Husserl and the promise of time. Subjectivity in transcendental phenomenology. Cambridge University Press.
Djian, A. (2021). Husserl et l’horizon comme problème. Presses Universitaires du Septendrion.
Drummond, J. (2012). Intentionality without representationalism. In D. Zahavi (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of contemporary phenomenology (pp. 115–133). Oxford University Press.
Drummond, J. (2013). Husserlian intentionality and non-foundational realism: Noema and object. Kluwer.
Drummund, J. (2015). The Doctrine of the Noema and the theory of reason. In A. Staiti (Ed.), Commentary on Husserl’s ‘ideas I’ (pp. 257–271). De Gruyter.
Geniusas, S. (2021). Horizon. In D. De Santis, B. C. Hopkins, & C. Majolino (Eds.), The Routledge handobook of phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy (pp. 221–230). Routledge.
Haddock, A., & Macpherson, F. (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism. In A. Haddock & F. Macpherson (Eds.), Disjunctivism: Perception, action, knowledge (pp. 1–24). Oxford University Press.
Hopp, W. (2011). Perception and knowledge. Cambridge University Press.
Husserl, E. (1950 [rpt. 1973]). Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. In W. Biemel (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol. 2). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; The idea of phenomenology (L. Hardy Transl.). Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.
Husserl, E. (1962). Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. In W. Biemel (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol. 9). Phenomenological psychology: Lectures, summer semester, 1925 (J. Scanion, Trans.). Martinus Nijhoff, 1977 (9/3-234).
Husserl, E. (1966a). Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins. In R. Boehm (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol. 10). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff; On the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (1893–1917) (J. B. Brough, Trans.). Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.
Husserl, E. (1966b). Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs und Forschungsmanuskripten (1918–1926). In M. Fleischer (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol. 11). Martinus Nijhoff; Analyses concerning passive and active synthesis (A. J. Steinbock, Trans.). Kluwer, 2001.
Husserl, E. (1970). Philosophie der Arithmetik. In L. Eley (ed.), Husserliana, (Vol. 12). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff; Philosophy of arithmetic (D. Willard, Trans.). Kluwer, 2003.
Husserl, E. (1973a). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. Husserliana, (Vol 1). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; The Paris Lectures (P. Koestenbaum, Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964 (1/3-39); Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology (D. Cairns, Trans.). Martinus Nijhoff, 1960 (1/43-183).
Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nach lass. Erster Teil (1905–1920). In I. Kern (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 13). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff; The basic problems of phenomenology. From the lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–1911 (I. Farin & J. G. Hart, Trans.). Springer, 2006.
Husserl, E. (1974). Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft. In P. Janssen (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 17). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff; Formal and Transcendental Logic (D. Cairns, Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969 (17/5-335).
Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. In K. Schuhmann (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 3/1). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book. General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (D. O. Dahlstrom, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company, 2014.
Husserl, E. (1980). Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. In E. Marbach (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 230). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; Phantasy, image consciousness, and memor (J. B. Brough, Trans.). Springer, 2005.
Husserl, E. (1984a). Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. In U. Panzer (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 19/1-2). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff; Logical Investigations. 2 vols (J. N. Findlay, Trans.). Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970, pp. 248–869.
Husserl, E. (1984b). Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906/07. In U. Melle (Ed.), Husserliana, (Vol 24). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff; Introduction to logic and theory of knowledge. Lectures 1906/07 (C. Ortiz Hill, Trans.). Springer, 2008.
Husserl, E. (1985). Erfahrung und Urteil. In Langrebe, L. (Ed.), Humburg: Felix Meiner; Experience and judgment. Investigations in a genealogy of logic (J. S. Churchill & K. Ameriks, Trans.). Northwester University Press, 1973.
Husserl, E. (2005a). Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband Zweiter. Teil Texte für die Neufassung der VI. Untersuchung. Zur Phänomenologie des Ausdrucks und der Erkenntnis (1893/94-1921). In U. Melle (Ed.), Husserliana. (Vol. 20/2). Kluwer Academie Publishers.
Husserl, E. (2005b). Wahrnehmung und Aufmerksamkeit Texte aus dem Nachlass (1893–1912). In T. Vongehr & R. Giuliani (Eds.), Husserliana. (Vol. 38). Springer.
Macpherson, F., & Batty, C. (2016). Redefining illusion and hallucination in light of new cases. Philosophical Issues, 26, 263–296.
Masrour, F. (2020). On the possibility of hallucinations. Mind, 129, 737–768.
Smith, A. D. (2008). Husserl and externalism. Synthese, 160, 313–333.
Staiti, A. (2015). On Husserl’s alleged cartesianism and conjunctivism: A critical reply to Claude Romano. Husserl Studies, 31, 123–141.
Zahavi, D. (2017). Husserl’s legacy. Phenomenology, metaphysics, and transcendental philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
The analysis developed in the present study originates from a long discussion with Claudio Majolino, to whom goes my deepest gratitude. The core ideas were first presented at the Journée d’études: Phenomenon: Open Questions organized at the University of Lille (UMR-CNRS 8163 STL) and at the Husserl-Archives Colloquium at KU Leuven in 2018. I also presented an earlier version of this article in an invited talk in 2019 at the University of Milan (ERC-funded research: AN-ICON, An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images, id. 834033). I would like to thank the organizers and participants of all these events and, in particular, Julia Jansen, Andrea Staiti, Andrea Pinotti, and Pietro Conte. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. This research has been funded by the FWO junior postdoctoral fellowship (Project: 1288722N).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author has no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cimino, A. Husserl, hallucination, and intentionality. Synthese 200, 304 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03777-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03777-w