Descartes Dream Argument

Descartes wishes to dismiss anything that can be doubted because he wishes to find a true foundation in which to build beliefs on. Using skepticism Descartes can find something beyond doubt to build true beliefs on. By doing so he hoped that his rationale would be accepted by the popular school of thought at the time known as “Scepticism” as well as those who, for Descartes, falsely believed in Aristotelian physics. From there Descartes can use their logic to appeal to the skeptics and ultimately persuade them away from their own mistaken beliefs at the same time. To go about doing this Descartes uses the Meditations in which a fictional meditator can illustrate the process of meditation to come to a rationalization of truth about reality. This meditator is used as a narrative illustration so that people can resonate by with the meditator by following his logical thought process and thereby use the Meditations to come to the same realizations. In doing so Descartes attempts to illustrate the most extensive logical conclusion if using skepticism properly to its most explicit nature. Particularly, that knowledge gained from sensory experience can be doubted and ultimately even thought can be nothing more than a deception. In this case, in Meditations 1, Descartes uses the dreaming argument to break down the very foundations of any and all beliefs gained via sensory experience. The First Meditation is used to begin in a position the Aristotelian philosophers would agree with by claiming that the meditators most certain beliefs come from the senses. From there he used the Meditations to subtly break down the foundations for beliefs gained by sensory experience. In doing so Descartes’ meditator is able to fend off all challengers to his skeptical argument and thus seduce people away from Aristotelian beliefs by showing that they often mislead us and can thus be doubted.

In Meditations 1 the meditator looks at the foundations of his beliefs. For, if the

Cited: Hill, James: Descartes’ Dreaming Argument And Why We Might Be Sceptical Of It Richmond Journal of Philosophy 8 (Winter 2004) http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp8_hill.pdf