DescartesArgument For Skepticism

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.

However, to make such a comparison he must first recognize that his dreams are dreams and when he is awake. If premise three is true, then he cannot recognize what is what between dreams and his experiences while awake. This causes Descartes to be unable to make the comparison needed to show that premise one is true. As a quick summary, if premise three is true, then it is not possible to know that premise one is true.

Descartes’s mission in the meditations was to doubt everything and that what remained from his doubting could be considered the truth. This lead Descartes to argue for the existence of God. For the purpose of this paper, I will first discuss Descartes’s argument for the existence of God. I will then take issue with Descartes’s argument first with his view on formal reality and varying levels of reality, then with his argument that only God can cause the idea of God. I will then conclude with

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

How do we know we are not dreaming some particular experience we are having, or we are not dreaming all our experience of this world? When we dream we imagine things happening often with the same sense of reality as we do when we are awake. In Descartes dream argument, he states there are no reliable signs distinguishing sleeping from waking. In his dream argument, he is not saying we are merely dreaming all of what we experience, nor, is he saying we can distinguish dreaming from being awake. I think his point is we cannot be for sure what we experience as being real in this world is actually real.

In order to weigh up these arguments, it is important to understand Descartes’ reasons for formulating them: Descartes’ believes that it is important to be certain of the things that one believes to be true which, in turn, causes him to question the things that he has been certain of thus far. Because of this, he forms these arguments to further consider his theories about doubt and what it is to be truly certain of anything.

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

The main idea of Descartes is that there is no difference between being awake and dreaming. Descartes says there are no definite signs to differ dreaming from being awake. You could be possibly

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

At the beginning of Meditation three, Descartes has made substantial progress towards defeating skepticism. Using his methods of Doubt and Analysis he has systematically examined all his beliefs and set aside those which he could call into doubt until he reached three beliefs which he could not possibly doubt. First, that the evil genius seeking to deceive him could not deceive him into thinking that he did not exist when in fact he did exist. Second, that his essence is to be a thinking thing. Third, the essence of matter is to be flexible, changeable and extended.

    The Dream Argument states that because we are unable to eliminate the possibility that we are dreaming our perceived reality, we cannot know anything about it. Formally, we can express this as:

Descartes’ method offers definitive conclusions on certain topics, (his existence, the existence of God)but his reasoning is not without error. He uses three arguments to prove existence (His and God’s) that attempt to solidify his conclusions. For his method to function seamlessly, Descartes needs to be consistent in his use of the method, that is, he must continue to doubt and challenge thoughts that originate in his own mind. He is unable to achieve this ideal state of mind, however, and his proofs are shown to be faulty.

In the First Meditation, Descartes invites us to think skeptically. He entices us with familiar occasions of error, such as how the size of a distant tower can be mistaken. Next, an even more profound reflection on how dreams and reality are indistinguishable provides suitable justification to abandon all that he previously perceived as being truth. (18, 19) By discarding all familiarity and assumptions, Descartes hopes to eliminate all possible errors in locating new foundations of knowledge. An inescapable consequence of doubting senses and prior beliefs