Scholarship at UWindsor

Do You See What I See? Integrating Hallucinogenic Drug Effects with Haack’s Foundherentism

In this paper, I argue that the organizational cognitive concepts that provide structure for visual perception can be systemized in a hierarchal model based on the invariance of these concepts when perception is altered by hallucinogenic psychoactive drugs. This thesis will be supported by first explaining the basics of the normal visual perception model in current neurobiology. This will be followed by a brief summary of the state of visual perception as altered by psychoactive hallucinogenic drugs. Following this discussion, I will present Susan Haack’s hierarchal model of credible truths contained in her theory of foundherentism. From foundherentism, I will utilize the ideas of invariance theory (delineated by Jim Woodward) to establish my thesis which states that the cognitive concepts that confer the most invariance will be higher on Haack’s established hierarchy. Lastly, I will address a counterargument concerning the short-term nature of hallucinogens and its potential nullification of the ability to derive this hierarchy. This paper works to integrate neuroscientific research with epistemic philosophy such that: 1) Haack’s hierarchal theory is supported by scientific data; 2) this data provides a tentative hypothesis of the specific ordering of her hierarchy; and 3) Haack’s hierarchy can be utilized to provide a potential explanation of the stability of certain cognitive concepts when the brain is influenced by hallucinogenic psychoactive drugs.