Descartes Dream Argument

In this paper, I will be discussing Descartes' dream argument for skepticism about knowledge. I will first explain the argument in simple terms, determine whether it is valid and sound, and finally provide counter arguments and then refute them.

Descartes wanted to know what true knowledge is by figuring out everything that could be doubted until he was left with something indubitable. His dream argument was one of the methods through which he tried to accomplish this. The dream argument states that "1. I often have perceptions very much like the ones I usually have in sensation while I am dreaming. 2. There are no definite signs to distinguish dream experience from waking experience. Therefore, 3. it is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false." In simpler terms, Descartes' first premise is saying that he often feels, or perceives and senses, things while he is awake that are like the things he feels when he is dreaming. His second premise is simply stating that there are no reliable methods to determine if you are dreaming or not that work every time. From these two premises, Descartes concludes that because while you are asleep, you could be feeling things similar to things you feel while you are awake and because you can't tell if you're dreaming or not, you could just be dreaming and everything you were feeling would be based on false and unreal things. It leads you to wonder whether you could just be constantly dreaming instead of being awake and if the "knowledge" you were gaining at any point in time is true or not. This argument helps Descartes determine what real knowledge is because it casts doubt into everyone's minds about their beliefs and knowledge and it shows him that knowledge that we'd otherwise think of as true can still be false. However, we can't simply accept his argument without putting it through some tests.

The first test is a test of validity. In order for Descartes' argument to be valid, it has to be structured so that it makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to still be false. If we pretend that the feelings we have while sleeping are like the feelings we have while we are awake and if we can't tell if we're dreaming or not, the only conclusion we can come to is that it could be possible that we could be dreaming right now and that all of our feelings right now are based on fake things. I believe this because it is the only logical conclusion one can come to after believing these premises. First off, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between dreaming and being awake because the two would feel the same to us. The only way we could tell is if we check if we were dreaming, but Descartes denies us the chance to with his second premises. Therefore, we'd be stuck without knowing if we were awake in the real world or in a dream world just like it. Also, it doesn't matter that the conclusion isn't probable. What matters is that it logically makes sense. But validity only proves that the argument is structured correctly. In order to further test it, we much check it for soundness.

In order for the argument to be sound, it has to be valid and all of its premises have to be actually true. I believe the first premise is true because everyone that has dreamt has had at least one moment where they felt their dream was like reality. This premise is helped by the belief that everything you dream is based on something you felt in reality. But more importantly, the premise does not require for all of our dreams to be like reality. As long as there was a single dream that was like reality, the premise holds. I also believe that the second premise is true because of similar reasons. For everyone, there has been a time where the dream world was so much like the real world that if they did test to see if they were dreaming, they would come to the conclusion that they weren't dreaming. In essence, it would give them the same results they would get if they were to do the same test in reality while they were awake. Of course, this doesn't have to happen every time. Like the first premise, as long as it happens once, it is enough to prove Descartes' point. However, there are several counter-arguments against these points and in the following paragraph I will attempt to disprove them.

A first counter-argument tries to fight against what Descartes was trying to achieve through his dream argument: cast doubt onto knowledge that we would otherwise deem truthful. The counter-argument states that because the ideas in your dreams are based off of things you felt in the real world, you can trust what you feel in your dream because ultimately, it is all based off of the real world. For example, in real life, there could be a picture of something that doesn't exist, like a flying cat. The painting is merely the joining of two very real things. Even though the painting is about something fake, it still came from experiences in the real world. Therefore, no matter what we dream, everything in the dream had to originate from our previous experiences or feelings of the real world so they should be just as trustworthy as anything when we are awake. But this counter-argument fails to account for things such as abstract paintings. Abstract paintings are not based on any experiences or feelings. They are made up and not based on anything real and so if a painting can just be made up, it's not that far of a stretch to imagine that we could also dream up something that we simply make up and that isn't based on any previous experience. (Sceptical argument 3: The dream argument.)

Unfortunately, this argument for Descartes has its own problems. While abstract art isn't based off of any previous experiences, it is still made up of colors and shapes. There are certain things, such as numbers, shapes, sizes, and time that simply cannot be changed because they are the fundamentals on which the world is made. They aren't empirical knowledge that can easily be doubted with Descartes original argument. Because of this, premise 2 of his argument lacks soundness. If one notices that one of these fundamental laws is being ignored, they could conclude that they were dreaming. In order to counter this argument, Descartes had to come up with another argument about an all power evil demon. It states 1. There is an evil demon that is all powerful. 2. He has it in his power to make us be deceived even about matters of mathematical knowledge which we seem to see clearly. Therefore, 3. It is possible that we are deceived even in our mathematical knowledge of the basic structure of the world. This argument saves premise 2 because if we do notice that a fundamental law is broken, we can't conclude that we are dreaming. It could just be the evil demon tricking us.

Descartes' argument was found to be both valid and sound. From this, we could conclude that we'd never know if we were dreaming or not, but I don't think that was Descartes' goal. I don't think his argument was meant to disprove our beliefs and knowledge, but merely to show us that we should doubt them. I don't think he wanted us to reject our empirical knowledge and act as if we didn't know anything. He himself said that he went about his day as if everything was okay and it was only when he was working on his philosophical papers that he remembered that he knew nothing. I believe he only made these arguments so he set some groundwork on his search for the ultimate, undeniable truth.