Ren� Descartes, The Evil Demon Hypothesis, And The...
In the 1600s, René Descartes, through his written meditations, sought out to find what we can be certain of as humans. His plan was to find any belief that could be doubted, and throw it away. He would do this by weeding out all the beliefs that he was uncertain about, leaving him with the beliefs that he was certain about. Then, he wished to use those beliefs he considered certain as his foundation for further knowledge. He went through multiple steps to come to his final conclusion. Finally, after every phase of his mediation, he created what is called the dream hypothesis, the evil demon hypothesis, and the Cogito argument. The dream hypothesis, which Descartes came up with through his first meditation, is based on the idea that there is no way to tell whether one is living in reality or in a dream at any given moment. In Descartes first meditation, he states that "there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep" (Descartes). He is trying to explain his point that it is impossible to know whether reality is not just a dream because when one is sleeping, they do not cognitively know that they are in a dream, therefore one cannot be assured that the reality they are experiencing is not just a dream. Because some dreams feel so lifelike, it could be possible that the life we know may just be a dream. For example, dreams are commonly day to day experiences, like going to class, so if I have dreamed I have gone
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