Lil Dicky
This photograph, currently widely shared on internet, was made by Cody Evans at Lake Erie, Ontario, on November 18 this year.
We all see the face.
In fact, we see the face first, and only next do we see the wave, that is: the wave as a wave. And then still, we keep seeing the face.
None of us is hallucinating.
Not that it matters. Certainly not much.
From the point of view of empirical philosophy, it makes no sense to enter into a dispute about whether what we see is ‘really’ there or not. We all see the face: so, empirically, the face is there.
Many will say: “That’s not really a face: it is a wave that, accidentally, resembles a face.”
Well, that only resembles an argument.
Because we all see the face.
We can only disagree about whether or not the face is ‘really’ there because we have already agreed on having seen the face. One can only say that “the wave accidentally resembles a face” after having seen the face.
Seeing the face came prior to any disagreement about whether the face is ‘really’ a face—or about whether the face is that of Poseidon, Zeus, or rapper Lil Dicky (all three have been suggested).
We see the face. Our agreement on this was immediate. No conference was needed. Not a single word had to be spent. Nor was there any shaking of hands. It happened before we knew it. In philosophy, this kind of “agreement” is called an acceptio (plural: acceptiones). Seeing the face implies an acceptio.
There is nothing for us to see, or hear, or smell, or touch, or taste without acceptiones. Whether something is ‘really’ there (in ‘normal’ perception) or not. Enjoying the flower that is ‘really’ there in front of me requires acceptiones just as much as seeing the face in Cody’s photograph does—or just as much as having visions at Eleusis did.
In fact, having visions is only a special case of ‘normal’ perception.
Which makes having visions quite a bit less special than the adherents of the ergot hypothesis would like us to believe.