Dismantling Descartes Dream Argument

Descartes objective in his Meditations on First Philosophy is an epistemological task to ground knowledge in what can be known as absolutely certain i.e. that which can not be doubted. Descartes rather than evaluating his beliefs one by one strikes at the core of that which is necessary in order to be able to come to judgements in the first place, he states “I will attack straightaway those principles which supported everything I once believed” (Descartes, 60). One of these preconditions being that of sensory experiences, if he finds sufficient reason to doubt the truth validity of his senses, he must therefore doubt every belief which has been predicated on the certainty of his sensory experiences.

The task Descartes embarks upon in his first meditation therefore is to doubt whether we can trust our senses. This is done through an argument based upon our experiences of dreams. Descartes observes that there is not enough sufficient differences between our experiences in the real world and our experiences in our dreams to justify being able to state that we can know whether we are in a dream or in the real world. He states that “I see so plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep” (Descarte, 60). 

The claim therefore is that the dream world and the real world are epistemologically indistinguishable and therefore we cannot know for certain whether the things I experience through my senses are in fact true or false. Descartes does provide a counter argument in his sixth meditation which he seems to believe as a sufficient reason to know whether we are in fact in a dream or not through the coherence test. Descartes observes that the experiences in the dream are not connected to waking memories and are often discontinuous therefore finding that mark which distinguishes dream from the real world (Windt, 1.4).  314

In order to refute the dream argument the claim must be stated clearly: the dream argument states that there are no distinguishable features between dream and reality and therefore we can be deceived. This argument is based on an epistemological claim of a lack of sufficient differentiation between dream and reality and an ontological presupposition of consciousness as to be deceived one must first be conscious as one cannot be deceived i.e. hold truth false statements, if one is not conscious. 

Secondly it is necessary to realize that we are dealing with knowledge that is obtained a posteriori through experience rather than abstract representations such as mathematics which can be known a priori. Therefore absolute certainty in empirical knowledge can always be doubted merely by the nature of the epistemological methods of inquiry. 

Starting with the ontological presupposition of consciousness, one cannot be deceived if one is not conscious, this is proven because it makes intuitive sense and the opposite is absurd. To be deceived requires one to hold a judgement in regards to truth validity which is predicated upon a state of consciousness. I hold that if one is in a state of unconsciousness one is unable to hold judgements of truth validity. It is then not entirely clear to me whether my state of being in dreams can be considered the majority of the time as conscious in the same way I consider myself conscious while writing these words on my keyboard. 

What I am proposing is something akin to what Sosa (Springett, 1.b) proposes whom says that “in dreaming we do not really believe; we only make believe” but while Sosa argues that this is the state of dreams I argue that this is contingent upon one's state of consciousness during the dream since occasionally one is able to become conscious. And then through the use of the principle of sufficient reason one can become aware that one is dreaming and therefore aware that one is being deceived. 

The epistemological claim of lack of sufficient differentiation between dreams and reality can, after recognizing the states of consciousness in dreams, be proven false through the use of the coherence test which Descates states in his sixth meditation, or more simply the principle of sufficient reason. If one is conscious, one can then proceed to use the coherence test to figure out whether or not the current succession of events logically follows from the activities of one’s overarching story of life. 

If I spend some time thinking I can understand my current activities in a logical series of events from when I woke up at eight thirty in the morning, I can also go back in the chain of events to the previous day, previous week ad infinitum to the degree to which I can remember. I can come to the realization that the activities I am engaged in right now have a logical structure based on my past experiences, which is contingent upon my memory and thus fallible, which proves mostly but not absolutely whether this is dream or reality. 

Therefore, dreams in fact do not deceive us regularly since most of our state of being during dreams is unconscious and thus unable to make us hold true or false judgements. If we do achieve consciousness during dreams we can employ the coherence test to logically figure out whether our current situation fits in with the large designs of our lives. Although this is not a perfect method, all empirical methods are not perfect and thus within the limits of epistemological certainty I believe with near absolute certainty that this essay that I am writing for my philosophy module is in fact real and not a dream.

References

Descartes, Rene. Cress, Donald. (1998). “Discourses on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy”” Fourth Edition. 

Windt, Jennifer. (27 November, 2019). “Dreams and Dreaming” Retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dreams-dreaming/#DescSoluDreaProbRealWorlDrea

Springett, Ben. (-). “Philosophy of Dreaming” Retrieved from: 

https://iep.utm.edu/dreaming/#SSH3biii