Rene Descartes Dream Argument

In “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and The Matrix”, Christopher Grau analyzes Rene Descartes argument concerning reality. The argument starts on page 181 in the bottom left hand corner of the page and continues onto page 182, ending at the bottom right corner of the page. In this text, Grau explains Descartes argument that what one may interpret as reality may not be more than a figment of their imagination and then uses it to develop his own argument. Grau explains that you cannot know whether you are in the dream world or the real world, and therefore argues that we cannot be sure that our beliefs about the world are true.

Although Descartes argument seems plausible decades ago, now there are ways to weaken is argument. In the science of psychology which focuses on the brain one can find that there are ways of knowing one is dreaming or sleep. Descartes even contradicts himself when he asserts “that even if all of our sensory experience is but a dream, we can still conclude that we have some knowledge of the nature of reality”. I believe that Descartes knows that he is not dreaming in a constant state of dream but that there is a sense of reality that one experiences. What one experiences are senses such as smell and touch that one cannot perform in a dream world. Being able to touch and have the sensation of touching an item such as a table in a dream does not happen. The sensation of pain is also an indicator of a reality that does not exist in the reaffirms that one is not in reality.

Descartes first presents this idea with the statement "How often does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the fireplace -- when in fact I am lying undressed in bed!" (Descartes 490). By using an experience of his own, Descartes shows how dreams can be asymptotic to reality. Descartes implies that he often sits next to his fireplace, clothed in his dressing gown, so his dream that he is doing so is very believable. In conclusion, one cannot distinguish between a dream and reality because the gradient between them is so finitely small at times.

According to Descartes’, “As I think about this more carefully, I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.” This is the fundamental principle of the Dreaming Argument. The scenarios in which we experience whilst we are asleep are comparable to the scenarios we experience whilst we are awake. Often, we struggle to tell from our own perspective where our experiences are derived from; it is difficult to differentiate whether our experiences stem from reality or our dreams. The issue with this is that our unconscious

Descartes’ Dreaming Argument comes from his thinking that there is no way of knowing if you are sleeping or if you are awake. To know something is to have no doubt of a fact, it must be a justified true belief. To be justified it must hold logical reason, you cannot state something is true without evidence. In order for it to be true it is not enough to justify it, but it must be justified with true facts. Finally, you must believe it, in order to know something it must be true in your mind. As a result Descartes doubts his consciousness as he cannot truly know that he is awake. This spurs Descartes to question if any perceived knowledge of reality is really true. Descartes calls his senses into questions as he notes, “it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” and therefore concludes that as a result it is prudent, never to trust his sense. In

The last step in Descartes argument says if he cannot tell whether he is dreaming, then how can he trust any of his senses telling him about the environment? To know anything about the external world on the basis of his sensory experiences, it seems like

While it can be said that premise 1 is true, many people disagree strongly with premise 2. Descartes claims that we cannot be certain that we are not dreaming, but our dreaming experiences and our waking experiences are dissimilar. Our dreams often do not make sense and do not fit into a consistent and comprehensible timeline of events unlike our waking experiences. Even in circumstances where dreams are vivid and seem real for a short period of time, we are able to recall these dreams and acknowledge that they were not real life events. On the other hand, this view can be challenged by recognising we appear to be awake when we think about our dreams, but Descartes objective is to make the reader consider if it is possible that even the process of waking and reflecting upon a dream is part of the dream itself, thus reinforcing the idea that we are unable to differentiate between dreaming and being awake. The final limitation of this argument that I would like to discuss within this essay is its paradoxical nature. Although the premises of this argument appear reasonable, the conclusion seems ridiculous. While the conclusion does follow from the premises, creating a valid argument, the conclusion remains arguably unacceptable.

Descartes dreaming argument suggests that perhaps our senses cannot be fully trusted because we cannot be certain we are not dreaming, and this means we therefore cannot be certain of anything. His evil demon argument is similar but uses the idea of an evil demon deceiving you instead of your senses. These sceptical arguments mean that we cannot be certain of anything at all for it may be happening whilst we are dreaming, or we are being tricked into thinking it is happening. I do not agree with Descartes because I feel that I can be certain I am not dreaming, and I do not believe that other supernatural creatures; such as an evil demon exists.

The dreaming argument was based upon the idea that both waking and sleeping (dreaming) experiences can be very similar, and that distinguishing between the two may not be possible. This led to Descartes doubting that waking experiences are actually infact waking experiences and not dreams. Descartes developed this argument and claimed that in order to be certain of any experiences, we have to be certain that we are not dreaming. However, Descartes continued and

Many different interpretations of Descartes’ dream argument could derive from his theory. In lecture we interpreted Descartes’ Dream Argument as follows:

It is deception from the sense that causes this mistrust for Descartes and brings forth the Dream Argument. The human senses as well feel very real, just as they do in reality, and this is one of the first things that have Descartes question the differences between being awake and dream. Due to the trust issues it he becomes unsure of whether he is dreaming or not. When it comes to dreaming Descartes thinks that there could possibility that some certain God that may have easily deceived him in falsely believing in things could appear to be correct but are not. However Descartes says that it God is described as a supremely good being (Descartes, 21). God has always been a being that is worshiped and why would so many people worship an evil God if he brings no positives to their lives. Descartes however is not 100 percent positive on whether God is being deceptive or not being deceptive. James Hill says that “[the] key move that Descartes then makes is to highlight the lack of insight one has into one’s condition when dreaming. It is this lack of insight, and Descartes’ way of interpreting it, which forms the backbone of the dreaming argument” (Hill, 2). To shorten that down, the minimal explanations to why and how dreams occur is the foundation for Descartes’s Dream Argument.

The Dreaming argument first showed up in Descartes First Meditation, where he focusses on the task to educate himself on his own doubt. When meditating he starts to think about how he has a hard time distinguishing himself from being asleep and awaking. This is how the dreaming argument came forth. The Dreaming Argument easily said is “If I am certain of anything, then I have to be certain that

In the excerpt of Certainty, Moore provides a series of arguments against the Dream Argument. In this paper, I will present Moore’s claims and focus on analyzing his reasoning for why the skeptic’s hypothesis is inconsistent. Throughout the essay, I will argue that Moore’s inconsistency approach is unable to disprove the Dream Argument by showing how his explanation does not reject the main premises of the argument.

Philosophical skepticism is demonstrated throughout Descartes 1st Meditation. Descartes uses an Argument based on dreams to justify skepticism. The dream argument basically consists of questioning whether or not the senses are always reliable. Our dreams can oftentimes be very realistic, whether it be daydreams or dreams while we sleep.

I mentioned Rene Descartes earlier in my writing and want to unpack his thinking a little more. In “Meditation on the First Philosophy,” Descartes starts to question whether he can really tell the difference between being asleep and being awake. He says the following: “Let us then suppose* that we are dreaming, and that these particular things (that we have our eyes open, are moving our head, stretching out our hands) are not true; and that perhaps we do not even have hands or the rest of a body like what we see. It must nonetheless be admitted that the things we see in sleep are, so to speak, painted