Keywords: cursorLocation=73, fitsPagesWidth=1

Michael Pruess
												Philosophy 25B
												2/11/09
												Th 10-11 Section
Maybe I'm Insane or Dreaming
	In the first of his Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes sets out to discard all untrue beliefs he holds. He does this because he is trying to establish a new science, one that overturns the long-believed-in Medieval Aristotelian physics, and he cannot do so convincingly unless he starts from scratch. He decides to use "the method of doubt"—a process that entails him examining a belief he holds, judging whether or not he has any reason at all to doubt it, and then throwing it away if any reason exists. Because he has too many beliefs to question them all individually, he elects to scrutinize those underlying beliefs upon which multiple beliefs rest, such as the belief that he can trust his senses (which allows him to believe that he is sitting by a fire, holding a piece of paper, among other things). By shaking the current foundations of his beliefs, he can rid himself of all that is false and build new foundations for truer beliefs. 
	In his quest to find a reason to doubt the evidence of his senses, Descartes posits that they may be deceiving him in much the same way as they deceive the insane. He does not spend much time on the issue (a handful of sentences), and dismisses the possibility of his insanity with the truistic declaration that "such [insane] people are mad," and that he would "appear no less mad" if he were to imagine himself like them. In lecture, Professor Ginsborg offered one possible explanation for Descartes' disregard for the possibility of insanity: Descartes is undertaking something that only rational people could reasonably undertake; if he is insane, the point of the meditations is moot. Perhaps this is what Descartes thought when he shoved aside insanity as a reason to doubt the evidence of his senses, but I believe he did not do the topic justice. There are ailments of the mind that grant one delusions without stealing all traces of rationality. There are strains of psychosis that can lead a person to do exactly what Descartes describes insane people as doing (imagining things to be different from how they are) while leaving the psychotic person perfectly capable of organized thought. I find it unlikely, yet possible, that Descartes was suffering from this psychosis, and though he could reason, his senses were lying to him. 
	Surely, if Descartes considers this possibility that he is insane—a possibility which I don't think it is within his power to dispel—the meditations would grind to a halt. As Professor Ginsborg said, the point would be moot (if he can't prove that he's not insane, he can't proceed). With the goal of the meditations in mind, it would be counterproductive for Descartes to spend more time contemplating insanity that he did, but I don't believe that that makes the consideration any less important. Ignoring the purpose of the meditations and focusing only on the method of doubt and the question of how real Descartes' reality is, the consideration that he might be insane is an excellent reason for doubting the evidence of his senses. However, Descartes was a man on a mission, and he proceeded to look for a different reason to doubt his beliefs.
	This new reason that Descartes devises for doubting the evidence of his senses is the idea that he might be dreaming. He states that he sometimes dreams, and that he sometimes dreams of such mundane things as he is experiencing as he is writing the meditations—that he is sitting by a fire, holding a piece of paper, and so on. He claims that there is no difference between what he senses and what he would sense in a dream. Descartes goes on to say that the things he senses in dreams are like painted images—that is, though they might be completely imaginary, the basic elements forming them (shape, size, number, extension, color) must exist. Thus even if he is dreaming, he must have somehow experienced something while awake at some time. I personally have never had the experience of dreaming without being aware that I was dreaming. However, given the understanding that different people are prone to different types of dreams, it is easy for me to agree with Descartes that his "dream skepticism" is a good reason to doubt the evidence of his senses. Though the idea that we are constantly dreaming seems absurd to me, I can do nothing but believe that Descartes sometimes dreams realistically that he is sitting by a fire, holding a piece of paper, and from that belief the rest of his argument follows. 
	Though Descartes goes on to consider another form of skepticism that calls even more of his beliefs into doubt, he never dispels dream skepticism. I suppose I could be dreaming as I write this paper.