Abstract

Consider two experiences, one a veridical perceptual experience of a black cube in front of one, and a matching hallucinatory experience. From the perspective of the subject undergoing these experiences they at least can be phenomenologically indistinguishable. Call this the phenomenological indistinguishability claim (PI for short). My aim in this paper is to argue for a distinctive view which I call phenomenological disjunctivism, drawing on the works of classical phenomenologist Edmund Husserl. Phenomenological disjunctivism significantly qualifies the PI claim, and in doing so is able to establish, through phenomenological analysis of the relevant experiences, an intrinsic difference in kind between veridical perception and (matching) hallucination, that is a difference in ‘essence’ purely on phenomenological grounds. Phenomenological disjunctivism accepts that veridical perception and hallucination either are or at least can be phenomenologically indistinguishable at a time but argues that due to a key difference in the possibilities of fulfilment of their ‘horizon structure’ are nonetheless phenomenologically distinguishable as fundamentally different types of experience over time (i.e., diachronically). This is the key Husserlian insight I will be reconstructing and attempting to make sense of in an articulation of phenomenological disjunctivism.