Dream Argument Descartes

1 Knowledge of the outside world is something we can only attain through our senses. Unfortunately, we can easily fall for illusions. Descartes explains in his First Meditation that he cannot trust his senses to obtain knowledge of the external world because they have deceived him before ( Descartes, 1 ). The major deception of the senses is dreaming. So dreams falter the true knowledge we obtain through our senses. The argument of lacking trust in senses due to dreams is commonly viewed as an argument from ignorance due to its conclusion having no other evidence than being a possibility. To support labeling the dream argument as an argument of ignorance, I will use Elizabeth Wolgast’s view of knowledge and Barry Stroud’s analysis of the Dream Argument. Wolgast states her view on knowledge in her book Paradoxes of Knowledge. She believes one cannot truly explain how they know something. She also believes that when one knows something, one must also know its consequences because lack of that knowledge would create uncertainty ( Wolgast, 23 ). The relationship between the “knowledge about the world” and knowing that we are dreaming can fit into …show more content…
But all it does is just that. The requirements and conditions needed to gain knowledge about the world are both unreachable. One cannot test oneself if they are dreaming nor can one truly know about something. The relationship between the knowledge that one is dreaming and the ability to gain knowledge about the world through senses is a valid argument in that one not-premise implies the other premise. But knowing each one separately is a whole different question that is even more confusing. Even with all the implications, conditions, and change of questions, there is no true proof to tell that this argument is wrong or right. It lives on as a thought to stay in the back of many philosophers’