Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy

In “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and the Matrix”, Christopher Grau explains Rene Descartes argument in Meditation. What one may interpret as reality may not be more than a figment of one’s imagination. One argument that Grau points out in Descartes essay is how one knows that what one think is an everyday experience awake is not all a part of a hallucination. He uses the example of dreams to draw a conclusion about is claim based on experiences one would experience with dreaming. He asserts that there are times when one wake up from a dream that seems to be “vivid and realistic” however soon finds that it was not. The experience of reality in the dream was all a part of the mind. If dreams seem to be

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

Meaning, we could be constantly dreaming and not be aware of it. He uses this line of reasoning to support his claim that sense and perception can not be trusted and that nothing is certain. Descartes mentions being able to have perceptions similar to the sensations he has while dreaming. Therefore there are no definitive signs of to discern between dream experience and wake experience. Which makes it possible for him to claim that he may be dreaming at that very moment, even though he may think he is meditating or writing, it is all a sensory and perceptive illusion. Backing his statement with the concept of doubt and skepticism, he is able to fully explain why one can not tell whether they are awake of dreaming. Consequently, we must carefully test and examine our senses to determine if they represent

While it can be said that premise 1 is true, many people disagree strongly with premise 2. Descartes claims that we cannot be certain that we are not dreaming, but our dreaming experiences and our waking experiences are dissimilar. Our dreams often do not make sense and do not fit into a consistent and comprehensible timeline of events unlike our waking experiences. Even in circumstances where dreams are vivid and seem real for a short period of time, we are able to recall these dreams and acknowledge that they were not real life events. On the other hand, this view can be challenged by recognising we appear to be awake when we think about our dreams, but Descartes objective is to make the reader consider if it is possible that even the process of waking and reflecting upon a dream is part of the dream itself, thus reinforcing the idea that we are unable to differentiate between dreaming and being awake. The final limitation of this argument that I would like to discuss within this essay is its paradoxical nature. Although the premises of this argument appear reasonable, the conclusion seems ridiculous. While the conclusion does follow from the premises, creating a valid argument, the conclusion remains arguably unacceptable.

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

In the meditations, Descartes evaluates whether or not everything we know is a reality or a dream. Descartes claims that we can only be sure that our beliefs are true when we clearly and distinctively perceive them to be true. As the reader analyzes the third meditation, Descartes has confirmed that some of his beliefs are in fact true. The first is that Descartes himself exists. This is expressed in what has now become a popular quote known as the “Cogito” which says, “I think therefore I am. His second conclusion is that God exist and that he is not a deceiver. Descartes then presents his arguments to prove the existence of God. He argues that by nature humans are imperfect beings. Furthermore, humankind could not possibly be able to comprehend perfection or infinite things on their own. He writes, “By the name of God I understand a substance that is infinite, independent, all-knowing, all powerful, and which myself and everything else…have been created.”(16) Descartes uses this description of God to display the distinction between God and man.

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

The Dream Argument of Rene Descartes is a philosophical skeptical argument used by Descartes himself to put into doubt the existence of any knowledge he has gained from his sense. There have been many interpretations of Descartes’ Dream Argument by different philosophers, and one notable example is that of Barry Stroud’s example. Stroud, in his Problem of the External World, describes the Dream Argument as an argument where “we must know we are dreaming if we are to know anything about the world around us” (Stroud 30). This reading by Stroud describes the Dream Argument as an altered form of an argument from ignorance, which would have a general formulation as such:

In Descartes’s dream argument, he argues that people cannot know whether they are dreaming or awake because people have perceived a very likely world through their sensation when they are dreaming. It is hard to determine that whether people are dreaming or awake because there is no certain sign that people can recognize dreaming from the waking experience. And if they cannot determine that, whether they are in the dreaming or waking world, people do not know anything. In addition, it is possible that all of the sensations that people have are false since they might in the dream. Therefore, people know much less than people ordinarily think they know.

It is deception from the sense that causes this mistrust for Descartes and brings forth the Dream Argument. The human senses as well feel very real, just as they do in reality, and this is one of the first things that have Descartes question the differences between being awake and dream. Due to the trust issues it he becomes unsure of whether he is dreaming or not. When it comes to dreaming Descartes thinks that there could possibility that some certain God that may have easily deceived him in falsely believing in things could appear to be correct but are not. However Descartes says that it God is described as a supremely good being (Descartes, 21). God has always been a being that is worshiped and why would so many people worship an evil God if he brings no positives to their lives. Descartes however is not 100 percent positive on whether God is being deceptive or not being deceptive. James Hill says that “[the] key move that Descartes then makes is to highlight the lack of insight one has into one’s condition when dreaming. It is this lack of insight, and Descartes’ way of interpreting it, which forms the backbone of the dreaming argument” (Hill, 2). To shorten that down, the minimal explanations to why and how dreams occur is the foundation for Descartes’s Dream 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

     The second argument that Descartes defends is another question posed towards the senses. How can we take anything as real if our dreams cannot be

Descartes’ dream argument from his First Meditation leads people to doubt their senses. Descartes begins the argument with thinking that we can tell whether we are dreaming or not based on our experiences. However, he then realizes that it is not possible to recognize if we are dreaming or are awake. Since we cannot distinguish between the two, our perceptions and senses can be doubted. This is the purpose of the dream argument and proven true by Descartes, which makes the argument convincing.

     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.

Descartes' meditations are created in pursuit of certainty, or true knowledge. He cannot assume that what he has learned is necessarily true, because he is unsure of the accuracy of its initial source. In order to purge himself of all information that is possibly wrong, he subjects his knowledge to methodic doubt. This results in a (theoretical) doubt of everything he knows. Anything, he reasons, that can sustain such serious doubt must be unquestionable truth, and knowledge can then be built from that base. Eventually, Descartes doubts everything. But by doubting, he must exist, hence his "Cogito ergo sum".