Varieties of synesthetic experience

Abstract

In her response to my “Seeing as a Non-Experiental Mental State: The Case from Synesthesia and Visual Imagery” Ophelia Deroy presents an argument for an interesting new account of synesthesia. On this account, synesthesia can be thought of as “a perceptual state (e.g. of a letter)” that is “changed or enriched by the incorporation of a conscious mental image (e.g. a color).” Deroy argues convincingly that Perky cases, in which the content of visual imagery is partially constituted by the content of perceptual experience, possibly are best understood as incorporated, or mixed, mental states (Deroy, Chap. 27, this volume; Perky 1910). But even if Perky cases are not truly mixed conscious states, Deroy argues, it is quite plausible that some of our mental states have perceptual as well as imagistic elements. Cases of synesthesia are good candidates to be exactly these kinds of mixed states.