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Descartes' reality & dream argument

In his Meditations, Descartes brings up the notion that even though we think what our sense is true, there¡¦s no absolute way of proving whether what we are sensing truly exists. Descartes adopts ¡§dream¡¨ as an example to show how sense perception could possibly lead to deception of feeling, because if one is so easily subject to deception while during dreams, then we can hardly be certain that he will not be fooled by the senses in any other way even when he considers himself wide awake. Further more, Descartes argues that since there¡¦s no way of telling which perceptions are true and which not¡Xand as perception is the only way through which we acquire knowledge about things¡Xall of what we¡¦ve previously believed to be existing should now be dealt with doubt, that is, we can only make assumptions about their existence.
There is, indeed, a distinct difference between what is there and what we perceives as being there. In fact, it could very possibly be that the entire...

Posted by: Sylvia Schiavoni

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