CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Petkovic, Nenad |
|---|---|
| Title | Lucid Dreams and Dream Skepticism |
| Summary | The overall goal of the thesis is to offer a new way of responding to dream skepticism. This goal is to be achieved in four steps, corresponding to the four chapters of the thesis. Chapter I starts off by outlining a scientific approach to the problem of dream skepticism. The distinguishing feature of this approach is its attempt to provide scientific understanding of dreams with emphasis on how we are deceived in dreams. This chapter hopefully, provides us with a proper understanding of dreams: in dreams we are deluded due to impaired cognitive capacities such as reflective thought and memory, but this situation can be improved by learning to have lucid dreams. The goal of Chapter 2 is to show the specific character of dream skepticism in comparison with arguments using other types of skeptical scenarios such as the brain-in-a-vat (BIV) and the Matrix. For each of these scenarios two types of skeptical arguments could be devised. I call them A type and B type arguments. I will compare how this argument works with different skeptical scenarios. The conclusion of Chapter 2 will be the identification of the premises of the skeptical arguments which can be questioned if we have a proper understanding of dreams. Both traditional skeptics and modern anti-skeptics agree that in dreams we lack knowledge. But the lack of knowledge in dreams need not be an obstacle in fighting dream skepticism. Some strategies insist that as long as one can know that one is not dreaming while awake, it is irrelevant whether one can know that one is dreaming while dreaming. Chapter 3 explores some of these strategies. I argue that these strategies are vulnerable to what I call “Hobbes’ objection” according to which as long as dream experiences that can seem every bit as well ordered and well-connected within the dream world, as waking experience is in the real world are allowed, the proponents of these strategies will be unable to decide if they are awake or dreaming. In Chapter 4 I propose a way for avoiding Hobbes’ objection. The full response to dream skepticism requires the possibility of effectively distinguishing dreams and waking experiences. This is possible for a lucid dreamer. The final sections of the thesis are dedicated to responses to the objections to the approach I suggested. The main objection could be formulated like this: is it necessary for everyone to learn how to dream lucidly in order to know any proposition about the external world? Hopefully, answers to this objection will give us some interesting insights into the nature of our knowledge of the external world. |
| Supervisor | Farkas Katalin |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/petkovic_nenad.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University