COMMENSAL ISSUE 92

Theo,

As you know, I am studying for the B.A. Phil with London University and one of my subjects is Descartes.

1. The question is raised in the studies "how do we know we are not dreaming?". My thoughts are as follows: We appear to have two levels of consciousness - one that operates when we are awake and another that takes over when we are dreaming. The former seems to be very strong and connected to our instinct for survival in that when we are dreaming and something occurs in the dream that threatens our existence we wake up (cf. Nightmares). So I would say that we know we are awake when we are aware that any event that would cause us to change from a dreaming state to a wakened state would have no effect in the present circumstances. What do others think of this definition?
2. In epistemology numerous examples are given concerning knowledge and justified belief. Many follow the pattern that you know something and then certain things change. Are you then justified in saying you still know the first proposition. My argument is that many of the examples presuppose knowledge that you can't (in my opinion) have. For example You park your car in the office car park. Some body wants to borrow it. You give him the keys and tell him where it is etc. etc. But my argument is that once the car is out of your sight you can no longer say you know where it is. You can say you know where it was when you left it but nothing more so far as I can see So how can you say you know it is in slot X of the car park ?
3. Another example given in Grayling's Guide to Philosophy is that where you go to work in the morning and the kids are playing in the garden. Unknown to you your neighbour invites them to play with her kids. Usually they would accept that invitation but today your wife refuses because one of them is a bit poorly. Are you justified in saying you know your kids are playing in the garden. My answer to that is that regardless of what events occur after you leave for work you no longer "know" that your kids are playing in the garden at all. Am I being thick or missing something ?

John Neary

John : My first thoughts are, that for question 1 there's a distinction between knowing one has dreamt and knowing one is dreaming. Do we ever know we’re dreaming while we’re dreaming, or only once we’ve woken up ? Dreams tend to unravel, so we know we must have been dreaming, whereas waking life doesn't - we're stuck with the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we wish we were dreaming, could wake up & things be all right. Sometimes we think we must be dreaming (eg. if we’d just won £10,000,000 on the lottery) because waking life seems to be fairly predictable. At other times we realise we must have been dreaming, when things are no longer as we expected them to be. With respect to your definition, I’m not sure that one couldn’t be dreaming that one was aware that any event that would cause us .... etc. As with all things, it comes down to probabilities. When one is awake, one can be fairly sure, but not certain, that one is awake. However, when one is dreaming, one can be sure of nothing because one’s thought processes are outside of one’s control.

I agree with you on questions 2 & 3. You don't know, in the sense of having certain knowledge. You have good reason to believe that your car is still in the car park, and it is reasonable to try to collect it from there, rather than from the local police pound. You have slightly less reason to be certain of the location of your children, though it is still rational to assume they are where they would normally be. You do know, however, that your car hasn't been transported to Australia (nor your children to Alpha Centuri) in the last 5 minutes, nor has any of them changed into an ostrich (though such things might happen in dreams !).

Theo