Free Life Is But A Dream So What? Essay Sample

Rene Descartes is one of the most important Western philosophers of all time. His theory introduced many concepts that are still being debated to this day. One of his greatest contributions was establishing a more skeptical view of reality. Concretely, he believed that determining whether one was dreaming or awake is impossible, essentially because one could imagine anything in reality. Therefore, according to him, one could dream that one were experiencing reality in such a way that it would be indistinguishable from the actual world.
In general, he rejected all tests that purported to clearly discriminate between reality and illusion, a group that would include the pinch test. This task would consist in pinching one’s self or another person. The person would then feel a sudden pain, which would make them wake up if they were dreaming. Therefore, this would help establish a difference between waking life and dreams, as the latter could be ended by receiving a pinch.
Even though some may believe that this is one of the most foolproof tests, Descartes would still have a problem with it. Its proponents would point to its relationship to the body and lack of consequences when one is actually awake, in order to make the case for the strength and validity of this test. Nevertheless, Descartes would say that everything that could happen within a dream.
Particularly, he would believe that one could dream that one was waking up from the dream, which is the supposed determinant outcome of the test. He would argue that one could not actually discriminate if the waking up to a sudden reality or not were occurring in real life or in a dream, making the test completely useless.
I thoroughly agree with this argument. I find it to be very solid, being reasonable and intuitive at the same time. I believe that I could be dreaming everything, including writing this essay. If this is true, then no test, no matter how rigorous, would be able to establish a difference between these two states of consciousness.
One good criticism that I would have towards his logic is that he may just be concluding his own premises. This would make it a circular, trivial argument, without much interest and substance. His base postulates are that dreams and reality are undistinguishable one from the other, and this is what he establishes at the end, as well. Obviously, he cannot prove something that goes against his initial premises, no matter what the test were. Therefore, it is unnecessary and ridiculous to try to establish a test that would contradict it, because it would go against his own premises with regards to reality.
Therefore, even though I agree with the premises and the conclusion, I have to say that the logic behind it is somewhat trivial and self-evident. Basically, it is not an actual argument that would convince somebody, but a string of developments for people that already accept his line of thinking. As a consequence, his logic may be solid, yet it does not provide evidence for anything new.
Furthermore, I am not sure about the implications and consequences that this line of thinking has. I find this to be strong and conclusive, yet I am not sure it actually changes anything. Whether we are living in the real world or everything is an illusion does not change, then, just because we cannot determine the veracity of what is happening around us. Therefore, even though it may be a very interesting and solid argument, it may just be a question of interpretation and semantics, without many actual implications.