Rene Descartes Dream Argument

Since the time of our friend Eve, the tempting fruit, and that pesky snake, mankind has been in pursuit of knowledge and all that it has to offer. We have toiled trying to cultivate it, use it, and evolve it since the dawn of man and have only succeeded in spite of our innate ignorance. Socrates said it best, “I only know that I know nothing.” But can a quote that is as old as philosophy itself hold any relevance in a time like ours, where devices the size of our palms give us innumerable resources to extend our knowledge? Well, if we fast-forward over a millennium from Socrates in the 5th century B.C. to, what we may call, the father of modern western philosophy, Rene Descartes, one might assume that, even then, the quote does not apply. But one of Descartes’ most well-known arguments is almost born from it. Descartes’ dream argument fuels
The first is that since senses can be deceived, they cannot be trusted. He follows that a very realistic dream can be, in many cases, impossible to distinguish from what we perceive as reality (Withrington, Class Handout). Descartes’ dream argument is founded in this uncertainty, saying that “…there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, and this very feeling only reinforces the notion that I may be asleep.” (Descartes 111). Descartes is admitting to a truth which is often overlooked. He proceeds to posit that, if one can believe that there is an all-good, all-powerful God that wouldn’t allow humans to be deceived, then there is also the possibility of the existence of a “malicious demon,” whose sole purpose would be to trick us into thinking that what we experience is real, but it would actually be a lie (Descartes 113). Furthermore, Descartes points out that it is possible to be fooled, not only in reality, but also in