'''Disjunctivism''' is a position in the philosophy of perception that rejects the existence of sense data in certain cases.<ref name="SEP">{{cite web |title=The Disjunctive Theory of Perception |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-disjunctive/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |accessdate=12 July 2020}}</ref> The disjunction is between appearance and the reality behind the appearance "making itself perceptually manifest to someone."<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=WXEpBevTEqYC | title = The Inescapable Self: An Introduction to Western Philosophy Since Descartes | author = Timothy Chappell | author-link = Sophie-Grace Chappell | publisher = Sterling | year = 2005 | pages = 64 | isbn = 9780297847359 | accessdate = 2008-01-18 }}</ref>
Disjunctivism claims, against the argument from hallucination, that veridical perceptions and hallucinations are not members of a common class of mental states or events. The argument from hallucination claims that since hallucinations can be indistinguishable from veridical perceptions, the two states belong to a common class of mental states. According to disjunctivism, the only thing common to veridical perceptions and hallucinations is that in both cases, the subject cannot tell, via introspection, whether he is having a veridical perception or not; but they resist the inference from the indistinguishability of the states to the metaphysical claim that the two states belong to the same class of mental states.
A motivating factor for disjunctivism, is that it allows the theorist to hold on to the claim that in cases of veridical perception, a subject's experience actually presents the external, mind-independent object of that perception. Disjunctivism enables the theorist to claim that despite the indistinguishability, in a hallucination there is no external object to be related to, nor are there sense-data to be a part of the perception. Most disjunctivists are also naive realists (also commonly known as direct realism), although John McDowell, a prominent disjunctivist, is not a naive realist.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McDowell |first=John |title=Perception as a capacity for knowledge |publisher=Marquette University Press |year=2011 |isbn=9780874621792 |edition=1st}}</ref>
Disjunctivism was first introduced to the contemporary literature by Michael Hinton, and has been most prominently associated with John McDowell and Paul Snowdon.<ref>J. M. Hinton, ''Experiences: An Inquiry Into Some Ambiguities'', (1973).</ref><ref>J. McDowell, "Criteria, Defeasibility and Knowledge", ''Proceedings of the British Academy'' 68 (1982), pp. 455-479.</ref><ref>P. Snowdon, "Perception, Vision and Causation", ''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'' 81 (1981), pp.175–92. {{Cite book |last=Snowdon |first=Paul |title=Essays on Perceptual Experience |editor=Stephan Blatti |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2024 |isbn=9780199658299 |edition=1st}}</ref> It has also been defended at length by Duncan Pritchard.<ref name="SEP"/> Other prominent disjunctivists include Bill Brewer,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brewer |first=Bill |year=2006 |title=Perception and its objects |journal=Philosophical Studies |volume=132 |issue=1 |pages=87–97|doi=10.1007/s11098-006-9051-2 |s2cid=13004558 |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/32336/1/WRAP_Brewer_Perception.pdf }}</ref> Mike Martin, John Campbell<ref>{{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=John |title=Reference and Consciousness |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2002 |isbn=9780199243815 |edition=1st}}</ref> and Naomi Eilan.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eilan |first=Naomi |date=2017 |title=Perceptual Objectivity and Consciousness: A relational Response to Burge's Challenge |journal=Topoi |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=287–298|doi=10.1007/s11245-015-9325-4 |s2cid=255105759 |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/87500/1/WRAP-Perceptual-response-relational-Eilan-2017.pdf }}</ref> Matthew Soteriou has also discussed disjunctivism extensively.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Soteriou |first=Matthew |title=Disjunctivism |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |isbn=9780415686228 |edition=1st}}</ref> Disjunctivists often hold that an important virtue of their view is that it captures the common sense idea that perception involves a relation to objects in the world.<ref>M.G.F Martin, "On Being Alienated" in T. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds), ''Perceptual Experience'' (2006).</ref>
Disjunctivism can be contrasted to the Triggered Hallucination Theory of perception, which holds that veridical perception and hallucination are the same thing, but differ only in aetiology.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{cite IEP |url-id=disjunct |title=Disjunctivism}} * {{cite SEP |url-id=perception-disjunctive |title=The Disjunctive Theory of Perception}}
Category:Philosophical realism Category:Philosophy of perception Category:Theory of mind Category:Epistemological theories
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