The inconsistent cartesian dreaming argument
type: CreativeWork
description: A premise of the Cartesian Dreaming Argument is the claim that dreams are phenomenologically indistinguishable from waking experiences. My thesis focuses on how the skeptic arrives at this claim, and I argue that the claim is inconsistent with the premises used to derive it. This inconsistency runs as follows: if the claim were true then it cannot be known that dreams have occurred. I then consider several attempted solutions to this inconsistency problem, and conclude that they are all unsuccessful. Lastly, I offer an interpretation of the argument a?? as a reductio ad absurdum argument a?? that makes sense of this inconsistency.
abstract: A premise of the Cartesian Dreaming Argument is the claim that dreams are phenomenologically indistinguishable from waking experiences. My thesis focuses on how the skeptic arrives at this claim, and I argue that the claim is inconsistent with the premises used to derive it. This inconsistency runs as follows: if the claim were true then it cannot be known that dreams have occurred. I then consider several attempted solutions to this inconsistency problem, and conclude that they are all unsuccessful. Lastly, I offer an interpretation of the argument a?? as a reductio ad absurdum argument a?? that makes sense of this inconsistency.
author: LIM ENG LEONG
keywords: cartesian dreaming inconsistency descartes skeptic skepticism
date published: 2004-01-11
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:32:04Z
provider: National University of Singapore
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: National University of Singapore