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What Makes Descartes Dreaming Argument

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Recommended: Descartes’ First Meditation

In the ‘Mediation of First Philosophy’, Descartes talks about the foundations of beliefs and knowledge, in which he essentially aims to overturn the basic foundations of knowledge and beliefs, due to previous falsehoods, which had been centred on all scientific and mathematical foundations. Descartes is attempting to go straight for the basic principles on which his former beliefs rested. Descartes first step in undermining his basic principles is to demolish the idea the perception of our senses. In order for Descartes to accomplish such a tedious task, lays out possible arguments to support the idea for which can undermine our senses. He develops an argument called the ‘dreaming argument’, in which he explains that “There are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep” (13). This quote plays an important role, as it constitutes the basis of his dreaming arguments. …show more content…

In the case of the nightmare, your heart rate increases and you start to sweat out of fear. Descartes steps in to explain that these physiological and psychological responses are present when you’re not dreaming as well; ultimately getting to the point that if you were aware that you were dreaming, you wouldn’t expect to feel these responses. Descartes uses this to support his main argument, that there are not any absolute signs that help us to differentiate between the two states. Thus, gives us reason to doubt our sense entirely since we can differentiate between the

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“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

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Consequently, Descartes cannot distinguish whether he is dreaming or not. For example, Descartes admits that he thought he was conscious when in fact he was in a dream state. Descartes inability to distinguish between waking reality and dreams is, in part, due to to the

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Although the person might ignore it as being just another disturbing, scary dream; in fact, this dream reveals a lot about the dreamer. Some people

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Thus, we are not exactly exercising our free will. 5. Third reason: Descartes comes to a realization that God is not deceiving and we have a free will to choose our own path within the Fourth Meditation. a) your reason it is clear that Descartes knows God has a high uphold on the world and on the people. This could diminish the idea of free will itself, by contradicting with Descartes beliefs.

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In Meditation on First Philosophy, Descartes states that the realities he believed to be certain during his young years have been false. Which therefore causes him to embark on the journey to destroy all the opinions he had believed as the truth, and accept only those claims that are certain, firm, and permanent in the sciences. Deconstructing these pre-conceptions requires a process of methodological doubt where he withdraws from the senses; that “all that up to the present time [he has] accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it has sometimes proved that these senses are deceptive” (Descartes, 1-7). Descartes believes that at any moment, he could be dreaming, or his sense deceived by God or an evil demon. He ascertains his own existence through a clear and distinct perception guaranteed by God.

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It was once explored by Descartes that there are two worlds: the external world of the sensible and the internal world of the mind. While he claims that the mind is a truth that cannot be unreasonable doubted under the notion that “I think, therefore I am”, he is more skeptic with about the external world. This was first shown in his Dream Argument, where he argued that the external world could be doubted as it could be possible that everything people are able to sense are in fact an illusion brought to them by a dream. This is the problem of external world skepticism, being unable to tell if anything outside the mind is real. Descartes attempted to solve this in Meditation VI where he stated that his sense impression was the result of material objects due to being vivid and clear ideas.

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“As if I were not a man who sleeps at night, and regularly has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake… 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!” (). I don’t believe in Descartes’ claim that there isn’t a way to be positive that one is not asleep. Based on 22 years of experience I am unquestionably able to tell whether I am dreaming or I am awake. One of the main differences is that the ‘dream’ world doesn’t have the continuousness of the ‘waking’ realm.

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Rene Descartes introduces his argument by questioning the certainty of everything based on the deceptive human senses, and unreliable memory which leads him to conclude that almost nothing is absolutely certain. Descartes argues that if there is a possibility that everything surrounding him is merely an illusion, then there must be a powerful being that is constantly deceiving him with a possibility of him himself being that being. He also believe that if he can convince himself of these ideas then he must be something and thus concludes that if he is capable to think then he exists even without a body or a shape. He further reflects on his existence as a man with body parts and shape who consumes food and walks the earth. As a result, he deduces

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René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer and was considered as the “father of philosophy,” whom strengthened his basic and fundamental role in abstract thinking with his popular work, “Meditations of First Philosophy.” In this particular piece of work, Descartes ignored all he believed to be true and began to doubted all information, knowledge, or truths that are based on his senses. Descartes tested his “Dreaming Doubt,” where he stated that based on senses alone, there is no definite way of proving that you are awake or dreaming, therefore, any truths based on the senses are unreliable and untrue. He then added supporting materials to his claim to figure why and how his senses were deceiveable through abstracted logical reasoning.

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In the Discourse on Method, the challenge for Descartes is especially to present his method and to fight against skepticism. Descartes realizes that sometimes he is in error with his way of perceiving things. Descartes is sure that the mind and the body exist independently and assert that it is hard to tell if it is “me” or “god” or an “evil demon” who is responsible for your thoughts.” His last meditation on this passage provokes a feeling of hesitation. Descartes decides voluntarily to question all his knowledge and opinion.

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Descartes argues to be able to think of countless other shapes that have not been encountered by the sensory perception (e.g. a chiliagon), and yet “[he] can demonstrate various properties of these shapes, just as [he] can of a triangle” (¶6). Nevertheless, Descartes claims that all the properties of these shapes are true for the fact that he is clearly aware of them. Thus it follows from the fact that these shapes are true that these must be something, “and not merely nothing” (¶6). Furthermore, Descartes thinks that we are capable of having an idea of true and immutable nature when we are in the presence of something that is quite clear and it does not depend on something existing. If it is the case that it is clear, then this idea must be true and, at the same time, it must be

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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).

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Though his present sensations may be dream images, he suggests that even dream images are drawn from waking experiences, much like paintings in that sense. Descartes’ argument of dreaming consists of: 1. Descartes often has perceptions very much like the ones he usually has in sensations while dreaming 2. There are no definite signs to distinguish dream experience from waking experience 3.

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My thesis is that Descartes is correct when he says that the senses can be deceived and therefore they cannot be trusted, Descartes mentioned that he would confront the principles which he had supported everything that he believed. In most of the cases we use the information that our senses give us as true; however, we cannot trust our senses because they can deceive us and provide us with information that is not true or accurate. Descartes’ best argument for my thesis is that as he mentioned “I have noticed that the senses are sometimes deceptive, and it is mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once”. We cannot trust and relay that our senses are dependable. “Even thought the senses do sometimes deceive us when it is a question of very small and distant things.

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Descartes makes an attempt in answering this question, by suggesting the difference is; “what happens in sleep does not appear so clear nor so distinct as does all this. ”1 – referring to when he is conscious and alert. However, he continues to reflect on other dreams he has experienced where they have been so realistic, he would wake up surprised to find he had actually been asleep. Descartes himself said the more he considered the possibility of reality and dream interconnecting, the more “lost in astonishment” he became.

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