A sense of reality Katalin Farkas

Hallucinations occur in a wide range of organic and psychological disorders, as well as in a small percentage of the normal population (Bentall 1990). According to usual definitions in psychology and psychiatry, hallucinations are sensory experiences which present things that are not there, but are nonetheless accompanied by a powerful sense of reality. As Richard Bentall puts it, “the illusion of reality... is the sine qua non of all hallucinatory experiences ” (Bentall 1990: 82). The aim of this paper is to find out what lends an experience ‘a sense of reality’: what features are required for an experience to feel ‘real’, in the relevant sense? I will investigate the claim that phenomenological features are largely responsible for a sense of reality, and will find this claim wanting. My suggestion is that a sense of reality is created and sustained by the larger nexus of the subject's beliefs. I. Real hallucinations and philosophers ’ perfect hallucinations The notion of hallucination most commonly discussed in philosophy is somewhat different from the notion used in psychology or psychiatry. One source of philosophical interest in hallucinations is a concern with scepticism about the external world. Some familiar sceptical scenarios – that I am deceived by a demon, or kept in the Matrix by machines – involve the possibility of a hallucinatio