Analysis Of The Dream Argument By Rene Descartes

René Descartes in the first of his Meditations offers the simple yet profound “Dreaming Argument” for scepticism. His Meditator asserts that most knowledge claims arise from our sensory interaction with the external world and, since our senses are occasionally unreliable, they cannot always be trusted. (Descartes I.3-4) Additionally, we regularly have vivid dreams about plausible events and, while asleep, are often convinced of being awake. Since we can be in dream-like states while “awake,” such as when seeing an illusion, and can also be fooled while “dreaming” to believe we are awake, the Meditator concludes that no convincing distinction can be made between the two states. This entails we cannot rely on sensory experience as the basis for

Firstly, Hobbes's argument relies on the assumption that our sensory experiences have more credibility than dreams, which is precisely the notion weakened by the First Meditation. Descartes, in response, might have claimed that Hobbes only contends with half of the Dreaming Argument. Hobbes accounts for the reason that our dreams sometimes mimic reality, but he makes no mention of Descartes's other important claim: that, because our senses sometimes deceive us, our waking experiences can also mimic those of dreams. Descartes might have also reminded Hobbes that it does not matter that the senses are hindered in sleep because, potentially, they are hindered all of the time. If the senses cannot be trusted, then it would be unreasonable to claim that sensory experiences are any more coherent and consistent than events occurring in dreams. To proceed, Hobbes would have to first convincingly argue that the senses are indeed reliable and that, as a result, the experiences we have when awake hold a higher degree of reality than those had when asleep. His central demarcation criterion, that of absurdity, is made insufficient in light of this failure to engage with all components of the Dreaming Argument. Having not proven the senses are dependable, there is no reason to view sensory experiences as less absurd than those in dreams. It could be said that projecting absurdity onto dreams is a perceptual error, or another case of our senses deceiving