Critique of Descartes' Dream Argument Essay examples

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.

Dream Skepticism has been debated largely since Descartes’ projection of those ideas. Descartes believed many irrational thoughts in relation to dreaming, which proposed ideas that nobody at his time had ever seen before. Descartes’ challenging of the traditional ideas and proposing new ones in which challenged the minds of the individuals, as well as trying to convince the masses that dreaming had some sort of value for an individual that would carry on into his conscious world. Throughout these different ideas lied his main notion: the dreams produced in the human brain while unconscious are not false or fiction, rather, they present the truths that lie in our very minds and therefor should hold value to the dreamer himself. Descartes believed

In Descartes’ First Meditation, Descartes’ overall intention is to present the idea that our perceptions and sensations are flawed and should not be trusted entirely. His purpose is to create the greatest possible doubt of our senses. To convey this thought, Descartes has three main arguments in the First Meditation: The dream argument, the deceiving God argument, and the evil demon “or evil genius”. Descartes’ dream argument argues that there is no definite transition from a dream to reality, and since dreams are so close to reality, one can never really determine whether they are dreaming

Descartes’ skeptical arguments begin from the thought that everything can be doubted; the first being our senses. He claims that our senses can sometimes deceive us (e.g. when viewing things from far away). Things that can deceive us once, have the possibility to be deceiving us all the time—giving us reason to doubt all sensory claims. This leads to a problem since humans rely on empirical knowledge. If one cannot consider any claim delivered by sense to be true knowledge, then it gives reason for one to doubt reality. Following is the dream argument in which what seems to be tangible reality, is an effect of a dreaming experience. Descartes gives the example of dreaming he is sitting by a fire when in actuality he could be asleep

If I don’t know that I’m not dreaming that P, then I don’t know that P

This essay will take a look at Descartes Dreaming argument and Evil Demon argument. As well as discussing their weaknesses and strengths to later decide which argument is the best. Despite my belief of subjective truths, the reason for doing this is to establish both arguments on an equal basis and to determine which would be best in an argument.

This essay will critically discuss both of Descartes arguments – The Dreaming argument and The Evil Demon argument. It is clear to say that both of Descartes arguments casts doubt and this is made clear through the first meditation. Throughout this essay I will evaluate both arguments and critically evaluate the Evil Demon argument.

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

When Descartes remembers occasions when he is dreaming, he falsely believes he is awake. Reflecting on this, Descartes thinks he cannot

One of Rene Descartes’s most famous arguments, from his not only from his first meditation but all of the meditations, is his Dream Argument. Descartes believes that there is no way to be able to distinguish being in awake from being in a state of dreaming. In fact you could actually be in a dream right now. Rene Descartes’s theory that one is unable distinguish being awake from dreaming, as interesting as it is, can be at times a little farfetched, along with a few contradictions to himself, Descartes’s dream argument does not entitle himself to any sort of claim.

The dream argument claims that the act of dreaming provides an intuitive evidence that cannot be distinguished from those that our senses give us when we are in the waking state, and for this reason, we cannot give full credit to the senses we use to distinguish reality from illusion. Consequently, any experience from our senses should at least be considered carefully and rigorously tested to determine if it really refers to reality. In this essay, I will argue that Descartes’s Dream Argument proves that we cannot gain knowledge through the senses because senses are often deceiving and cannot be fully trusted. Our senses are our primary way of interacting with the world, they give us a raw information about what is present

     Descartes brings up the possibility that perhaps at this point, right now, he is dreaming. A person who is dreaming may have difficulty differentiating between the dream and reality. Descartes says “How often has it happened to me that in the night I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality I was lying undressed in bed!” (Descartes, p.76, par.1) According to this idea, I may believe, even now, I am dreaming, this not my body, and I am not writing this paper for philosophy but I am really lying in bed somewhere sleeping. This dream hypothesis would invalidate the beliefs that are based on internal sense; for if you are dreaming then what you believe to be your awareness of self is truly false. You may say that everyday life exhibits a smoothness and understanding, which dreams do not. Dreams have little rhyme or reason; while life experience is orderly and controlled. However, this scale of measuring the differences of coherence between dreams and reality is unreliable. Sometimes dreams are incoherent and sometimes they appear to be real.

The topic of this essay is Descartes’ First Meditations and I will be discussing in detail the Dreaming argument and the Evil Demon argument.

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.

Descartes organised his ideas on knowledge and skepticism to establish two main arguments, the dreaming argument and the evil demon argument. The dreaming argument suggests that it is not possible to distinguish between having a waking experience and dreaming an experience. Whereas, the evil demon argument suggests that we are deceived in all areas of our experiences by an evil demon. This essay will investigate the validity of the arguments and to what extent the conclusion of these arguments is true. The soundness and the extent to which the premises are true will also be explored. After evaluating these arguments it will be concluded that the dreaming argument is valid, but is not sound. Whereas, the evil demon argument is both valid and sound.