preview

Who Is Rene Descarte's Dreaming Argument

Decent Essays
Open Document

In Descartes’ famous book, “Meditations of First Philosophy”, his agenda is to destroy the foundations of knowledge we have built scientific inquiry around and to start over again. The first step in doing so is to first undermine the perception that we have of the senses. Descartes attempts to do this in his first meditation. To accomplish his goal he sets out multiple possible arguments, for which could indeed undermine the senses. One of these justifications is the dreaming argument. In this argument, Descartes writes, “there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep”. This quote is central and is a fundamental premise of his rationalization. In other words, what Descartes is essentially saying is that when you are awake you cannot truly differentiate between dream …show more content…

When you are having a nightmare, you sweat and become scared. To Descartes, these physiological responses show that while you are dreaming, you are not truly aware of it. For if you knew you were in a nightmare, you obviously wouldn’t sweat or become frightened. Descartes uses this to suggest that you never truly know whether you are or are not dreaming. Currently, I believe I am awake writing this philosophy paper, even though it does somewhat feel like a nightmare. However, is there any way of proving that I am truly awake and not dreaming? To Descartes, there is no actual way of proving if you are dreaming at any given moment, and this is reason enough to begin to doubt the senses. However, another famous philosopher, John Locke, my favorite character in Lost, looked at this argument and completely opposed it. Locke argued that while in a dream, we don’t feel pain, yet in the real, we do (Locke, 1690). This would suggest a subtle “pain check” could help us differentiate

Get Access