Sunday, February 10, 2008

What can be called real and what not?

( This would be all be well and good, were i not a man who is accustomed to sleeping at night , and to experiencing in my dreams the very same tthings , or now and then even be less plausible as these insane people do when they are awake. Neverthless, it surely must be admitted that the things seen during slumber are, as it were, like painted images, which could only had been produced in the likeliness of true things, and that therefore t least these genaeral things eyes, head hands and the whole body are not imaginary. ) The Meditator acknowledges that insane people might be more deceived, but that he is clearly not one of them. The Meditator has accepted that certain things are real and some are not. All of these things, he has learn through his senses. He acknowledges that sometimes the senses can deceive, but only with respect to objects that are very small or far away. The senses that we knowledge are quite real. The Meditator knows when his dreaming, he senses real objects. He has dreams that look real, because even if the person is dreaming, in real life the dreams that we experince we could make it true and real. In my opinion dreams are very decieving, they make the person think that they are actually awake. You could notice that when you see the person sweating, screaming, talking, jumping and many other more while they sleep. Have you ever had a dream that you thought it was not a dream?

2 comments:

Ally Jiang said...

How can he be sure if the insane people is more deceived and how can he be sure if he's not one of them?
to me Decartes think of too many questions to ask and he doubt his answers and that make him want to rethink his answers. This kind of life style probably will drive him insane one day, if not already.
also i agree with you, dream can be very decieving, no matter how real a dream can be. Decartes in this passage, is convinced that he might be asleep the whole time becausehe think that there are no definite signs of distinguishing being awake form being asleep.

Liz Meza (Philosophy) said...

I dont really think he accepts that sometimes he could be more insane than others.He belive he has explanation for all his writting. Yes the part that i was reading basically all he talk about was his dreams and if his awake or not.