Peyman Pourghannad

In responding to Norman Poole's insightful commentary on my paper, I wish to express my appreciation for his thorough engagement with the concepts and definitions I have proposed. His observations and critiques highlight some challenges in distinguishing between mental imagery and related perceptual phenomena—a task that is both complex and crucial for advancing our understanding in both philosophical and clinical contexts. In the following, I will address some of his specific concerns and clarify the reasoning behind the positions I have taken, while also acknowledging the broader implications that these distinctions may have for clinical practice.Regarding my attempts to refute the belief-based formulation of... Read More.

In this paper, first, I will argue why the definition of mental imagery in terms of its stimulus (external vs. internal) does not capture some essential properties of mental imagery; second, I will offer an alternative in which I define it in terms of phenomenological similarities and differences between mental imagery and perception. There, I will argue that the fact that mental imagery is essentially neutral with respect to the spatial location of its object indicates a fundamental feature, which refers to the fact that mental imagery, contrary to perception, does not necessarily represent its object as something located in space. This feature can explain some other important phenomenological differences mentioned in the literature, such as external phenomenology of perception as opposed to internal phenomenology of imagery, informativeness of perception as opposed to uninformativeness of imagery, and seeming reality of the percept as opposed to seeming nothingness of mental image.

There are numerous studies suggesting a substantial link between psychotic hallucinatory states and some forms of disordered imaginings. We have to figure out (1) what characteristic makes imagining, not other mental states, prone to induce hallucination, and (2) what underlies the (phenomenological/conceptual) transition from imagining X to the hallucinatory experience of X? In this paper, I will try to provide answers to these questions, in order to shed light on the nature of the so-called “misidentified” or “disordered” imaginative experience. To achieve this, I emphasize the phenomenological aspects of hallucination and imagination.