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2 ideas
2047 | What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato] |
Full Idea: What evidence could be brought if we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep and are dreaming all our thoughts? | |
From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 158b) |
8805 | Skepticism is false because our utterances agree, because they are caused by the same objects [Davidson] |
Full Idea: What stands in the way of global skepticism of the senses is the fact that we must take the objects of a belief to be the causes of that belief. And our utterances mean the same thing because belief in their truth is caused by the same objects. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.161) | |
A reaction: This is hardly a knock-down argument against scepticism, but it builds a nice picture. The second half extends the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). But I still have non-existent conversations about non-existent things in my dreams. |