Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Hume's empiricism
This is evident through arguments such as “The Argument from Past Failures”, “The Argument from Madness” and “The Dreaming Argument”. In Descartes’ famous “Dreaming Argument” Descartes argues that “there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.”, giving an example where he thought he was sitting next to a fireplace, unaware he was actually in bed dreaming (13). This argument challenges the idea of the senses again as it presents the idea that we can never know if what we are currently experiencing is real as we may be in a dream. Proving that there is no way to differentiate between reality and a dream, resulting in the idea that our whole life may have just been a dream, Descartes provided a counter argument to elaborate on the “Dreaming Argument” known as the “The Painting Analogy”. This analogy explains how like a painting and painter, dreams derive their material based on experiences we have while awake (13).
Descartes then attempts to define what he is. He previously believed that he had a spirit and body, by methods for which he was fed, moved, could sense, absorb space, had a distinct area and think. Each one of those methods are thrown into uncertainty except thinking. Since he can think, he should exist. He thinks about whether he no longer exists once his reasoning comes to a halt.
Dreams are defined as a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during sleep. Psychological studies show that dreams only occur during certain stages of sleep. However, Rene Descartes, a French philosopher argues that the sensations felt in dreams are indistinguishable from the ones we feel in real life. In Descartes Meditations I, Descartes talks about the dream argument in which he introduces the following premises. 1.
Notre Dame ID: 902008117 In René Descartes ' Mediations on First Philosophy, Descartes abandons all previous notions or things that he holds to be true and attempts to reason through his beliefs to find the things that he can truly know without a doubt. In his first two meditations Descartes comes to the conclusion that all that he can truly know is that he exists, and that he is a thinking being. In his third meditation, Descartes concludes that he came to know his existence, and the fact that he is a thinking being, from his clear and distinct perception of these two facts. Descartes then argues that if his clear and distinct perception would turn out to be false, then his clear and distinct perception that he was a thinking being would not have been enough to make him certain of it (Blanchette).
“How do I know that I am not dreaming” is one of the main questions that Descartes brings afloat in the dream argument. He wants to know how can it be possible to prove that he is not dreaming while he is seating and holding his piece of paper, and this is what creates a skeptic argument about his perceptual beliefs. In effect, the dream argument is powerful because it depicts how the senses may deceive us while putting into question if it is possible to know what is real and what is not. In fact, it is very sufficient to produce uncertainties about waking experiences. As Descartes poses it in the in the First Meditation, “…I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality
A particularly interesting aspect of Descartes’s skeptical argument is the dream argument and, by extension, the evil demon argument. If we follow the dream argument to its conclusion and become skeptical about the existence of the external world and our ability to draw knowledge from our senses, a troubling conundrum arises. If we consider it impossible to distinguish reality from dreaming and we also consider that a test to differentiate between the two states cannot be reliably performed, then let us imagine a hypothetical scenario where a person is awake and dreaming for an equal amount of time. How, then, do we draw a distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness? Between the sleeping dreaming world and what we consider to be the
In that respect I compare this with the Matrix by stating the humans in the Matrix thought that they were awake, but it was a type of sleep because it was all an illusion and as I’ve stated prior, they were living a virtual life, and that is not real. Descartes goes on to talk about the “malignant demon” and question if all “external things” are basically “nothing better than the illusions of dreams” and that the demon has deceived him. When he seems to resolve that he will stay in his “slumber” he is stating the same thing that Cypher did in the Matrix. Cypher believed that “knowing the truth would make life easier” but he found out that for him he liked being controlled by the computer and wanted to “erase his memories of the truth.” So he wanted to stay in an illusion or a
For how he can be certain that 2+2= 4 and not 5, how can he know for sure that he is not being deceived into believing the answer to be 5 due to a demon. But even if an evil demon did indeed exist, in order to be misled, Descartes himself must exist. As there must be an “I”, that can be deceived. Conclusively, upon Descartes’ interpretations we can come to decipher that in order for someone to exist they must indeed be able to think, to exist as a thinking thing.
The idea that if one can comprehend something in a dream, it therefore must exist in real life. The fact of this is that we know no positive transition between our dream state and the state of reality, and since dreams are so similar to reality, one can never tell when they are truly dreaming. Descartes demonstrates this idea with his own experiences, “How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events-that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the moment my eyes are certainly awake” (Descartes 145). By using simple experiences like these Descartes is able to emphasize that when a person is dreaming, they do not usually know they are dreaming, and the sensations they experience are as real as if they were awake.
When dreaming the things that are experienced are significantly different from the experiences one has when awake. For example, when in a dream one can only observe the events that are taking place, in a dream one has no control over what happens. Also, when dreaming one cannot feel bodily sensations, such as pain or pressure (Springett). So, this serves as a way to distinguish between being awake or asleep. In response Descartes would say that there are experiences of dreaming that directly mimic the experience of being awake.
The dream argument is presented by Descartes in his book, Meditations on First Philosophy, and is basically raising the question that “what if our life just all a dream? How do we truly distinguish what is real from what is a dream?” (Descartes, p. 334). It is interesting to think about this because if you think from a skeptical point of view, like Descartes is doing while writing these arguments, it is possible that you could put some beliefs into doubt that you normally would not. He writes about “how vivid dreams can sometimes be and how it is possible for us to not be able to distinguish whether an action that you remember was from reality or a dream state” (Descartes, p. 334).
Why can’t Descartes be certain about mathematical beliefs like the belief that 2+2=4? The truth that 2 + 2 = 4 does not rely on any sensible experience but is grasped entirely in our minds regardless of whether we are dreaming or awake.
However, Descartes accepts that humans can be wrong by relying on their sensory knowledge, though mostly on small objects in life. Because the senses can be incorrect, skepticism states that it isn't what Descartes searches for. Descartes tries to reassure himself, saying that it his sense must have some truth, since he is not a mad person. However, mad people are certain that what they see is real, and Descartes has just proven that his sensory knowledge can be wrong at times, so skepticism states that he can never be sure that he isn't insane. Skepticism also doubts whether people's lives are dreams or not, as people can confuse their dreams as real
In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes declares, “… I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now
He argued that one cannot be sure about the external and internal reality. He wanted to discover if dreaming and being awake is or isn’t the same content. Descartes could not identify a sign or clue to determine if one is dreaming or awake. He believed that things can seem realistic to him while he is asleep. He stated that it can be skeptic enough to believe everything could be false and everything could be generated and monitored by a dream.