What Is Negative Disjunctivism?

Abstract

Negative disjunctivists like Mike Martin and Bill Fish understand hallucinations in purely epistemic terms, and do not attribute phenomenal character to these visual misfires. However, the approaches by Martin and Fish are importantly different, and there has been little systematic work on how negative disjunctivism is motivated. In this paper, I argue for a version of negative disjunctivism that centers on the idea that perception involves the exercise of a fallible self-conscious capacity. I claim that this at once explains hallucinations in purely negative terms that are close to Martin’s approach, while at the same time providing negative disjunctivism with an explanatory basis that Fish attempts to provide and Martin’s view lacks.