Philosophy Final Paper: Evaluating Descartes Dream Argument

Ben James
June 5, 2013

Introduction
In this paper I will evaluate Descartes dream argument (as summarized in the following section) with the intent
to determine the soundness of Descartes logic, and ultimately opine on whether it seems correct that we are
unable to differentiate between a state of waking and dreaming in which case our perceived experiences may be
false. Descartes dream argument is a key foundation on which Descartes bases further conclusions about
perception and god in his Meditations.
This paper will begin by summarizing the key points of Descartes dream argument; it will then evaluate
criticisms against these arguments as espoused by other philosophers; and ultimately conclude by stating that
although I agree with Descartes premises regarding the inability to differentiate between sleeping and waking
(when viewed with skeptical doubt), I find the subsequent conclusion that he draws regarding the falsity of our
experiences to be inherently contradictory and therefore unable to be relied upon.
Summary of Descartes Dream Argument
Descartes dream argument is summarized in his first meditation:
As if I were not a man who sleeps at night, and regularly has all the same experiences
while asleep as madmen do when awake indeed sometimes even more improbable ones.
How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events that I am here in my
dressing-gown, sitting by the fire when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the
moment my eyes are certainly wide awake when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my
head and it is not asleep; as I stretch out and feel my hand I do so deliberately, and I know
what I am doing. All this would not happen with such distinctness to someone asleep.
Indeed! As if I did not remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly
similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I see plainly 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.
From his Meditations, I believe that Descartes dream argument may be broken down into the following parts (it
is important to note this is my own classification system and not one present in Descartes Meditations):
1.

First Premise: The content of our dreams is the same as the content of our waking experience.

2.

Second Premise (follows from first premise): There is nothing in our dreams which would indicate that
we are dreaming.

3.

First Conclusion (drawn from first and second premises): We cannot be sure whether we are dreaming
or awake.

4.

Second Conclusion (follows from first conclusion): We may be dreaming now.

5.

Third Conclusion (drawn from second conclusion and first and second premises): What we experience
may be false illusions.

I will evaluate this argument by analyzing each premise and conclusion separately on the following pages.

First Premise: The content of our dreams is the same as our waking experience.
Descartes states this first premise most explicitly when elaborating on his dream argument in his sixth
meditation; here he states, Every sensory experience I ever thought I was having while awake I can also think
of myself as having while asleep.
In researching criticisms of Descartes dream argument I found this first premise to be the most fervently argued
against. I suspect this is because dreaming can be a rather subjective experience and one which is also difficult
to accurately capture. Consider, for example, that dreams often involve fantastical events which may be difficult
to understand especially with fleeting recollection this is very different than memories which can be easily
verified (for example, you can check the oven you believe you turned off) and logically deduced.
I believe the clearest arguments against his premise were espoused by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In his
Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke argued that dreams do not contain physical pleasure and pain
which we find in an awakened state; stated pithily here:
I believe he [Descartes] will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the fire, and being
actually in it.
Hobbes argued against the same premise but with a different logic. To Hobbes, the difference was dreams do
not contain the same sense of the absurd found in reality. This was stated in Leviathan when he wrote:
Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking
thoughts; I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think my self
awake.
While both arguments seem logical, they also seem to be quite personal and I believe that Descartes here would
argue Locke and Hobbes have taken too narrow a view of dreaming. In my opinion, Descartes views dreams
as similar to imagination in which the possibilities are limitless. This is evident when he states that he can
imagine dreams that mimic sensory experiences he has while awake, and more generally in his reflections about
the unknown nature of dreaming and of his distrust in sensory perception. [Limitless is used here as a
generalization I believe Descartes considers there to be some intellectual core to both dreams and
consciousness, but I do not believe this detail is relevant to the dream argument (as it applies equally to dreams
and consciousness), and thus elaborating on it would be off topic and potentially confusing. I also feel the use of
such a generalization is important to note.]
Assuming my belief that Descartes would argue dreaming to be limitless, we could say then that it is possible
for a dream to contain both physical pain and a sense of the absurd. For this reason, I do not find these
arguments able to prove Descartes first premise false.

Second Premise: There is nothing in our dreams which would indicate that we are dreaming.
Although similar to the first premise, I believe this statement is slightly more encompassing. Here we can find
Descartes explanation in his first meditation where he writes: I see plainly that there are never any sure signs
by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.
As was the case with the first premise, I believe criticisms of the second may be due to the subjective nature of
dreaming, and in fact one could argue that the criticisms of Locke and Hobbes could be rephrased to attack this
premise (e.g. having a sense of the absurd would indicate one is not dreaming), but they could also be dealt with
in the same manner as discussed previously. It is worth noting, however, that in this case there is also a new
criticism posed by John Austin which suggests that dreams poses an intangible yet perceptible atmosphere
which distinguish them from when we are awake. He exemplifies this concept in his work Sense and Sensibilia:
I may have the experience of dreaming that I am being presented to the Pope. Could it be seriously
suggested that having this dream is qualitatively indistinguishable from actually being presented to the Pope?
Quite obviously not. After all, we have the phrase a dream-like quality; some waking experiences are said to
have this dream-like quality, and some artists and writers occasionally try to impart it, usually with scant success
to their works If dreams were not qualitatively different from waking experiences, then every waking
experience would be like a dream; the dream-like quality would be, not difficult to capture, but impossible to
avoid.
I find the subjective nature of this criticism to be a weakness (for example, I think some people would truthfully
describe certain waking experiences as having a dreamlike quality), but more importantly I believe that, similar
to the critiques of Locke and Hobbes, it is based on too narrow a view of dreaming, as espoused by Descartes.
To further this point, its worth highlighting that in his Meditations Descartes evaluates this difference between
dreaming and waking with an approach of extreme skepticism and doubt. Take, for example, his introduction to
his second meditation where he writes:
I will suppose then, that everything I see is spurious. I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and that none
of the things that it reports ever happened. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are
chimeras. So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that nothing is certain.
Understanding this extreme skepticism to be Descartes method, we can again suggest that it would be possible
for a dream to remove this dream-like quality thus making it more realistic to the point that one does not
distinguish it from being awake, and thus suggesting that Austins argument does not prove the second premise
false.
First Conclusion: We cannot be sure whether we are dreaming or awake.
Having shown that I accept the two underlying premises, I also accept this conclusion. However, in
understanding why I accept this conclusion it is important to note that I have assumed Descartes
characterization of dreaming is so broad, and based upon such a strong sense of doubt, that waking and
dreaming have become synonyms.

This idea that dreaming and waking are without contrast allows us to accept the second conclusion:
Second Conclusion: We may be dreaming now.
Given our analysis of Descartes interpretation of dreaming, then what difference does it make whether we are
dreaming or waking (as the two have experiences cannot be distinguished)? From this conclusion, Descartes
makes his final conclusion of the dream argument:
Third Conclusion: What we experience may be false illusions.
It is with this final conclusion that I find a contradiction in Descartes argument.
To understand this contradiction, it is first important to review again that as I have argued and understood
Descartes dream argument, to successfully prove his first two premises he treats waking and dreaming as
synonyms (this is how he is able to prove that we could be dreaming now just as we could be awake). However
he now attempts to make a claim about false illusions which only makes sense if there is a difference between
waking and dreaming this is where I find a contradiction.
If there is no longer a distinction between waking and dreaming then there can be nothing to compare and
contrast (i.e. false illusions). To use an overly simplified example how can one critique or analyze counterfeit
currency if there is not real currency on which to base ones analysis and contrast against?
For this reason, I believe Descartes cannot go on to make claims about perception and God (as he advances in
later sections of his Meditations) because they are based on a contrast between the reality of a conscious world
and the falsitys of a dream world which he has previously assumed to be one in the same.
Summary
This paper set out to analyze Descartes dream argument and found that the underlying premises were sound
when they assumed dreams could inhabit limitless boundaries similar to ones imagination. This allowed
dreaming to become comparable to waking and thus Descartes conclusions that we cannot distinguish between
the two and therefore in fact that we may be dreaming proved correct. However, Descartes then attempts to use
this as a basis to draw conclusions based on distinctions between dreaming and waking (for example that
dreaming has false illusions) which is at odds with his underlying premises and therefore inconsistent.