I decided to pretend that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams, because all the mental states we are in while awake can also occur while we sleep ·and dream·, without having any truth in them.
In this statement, Descartes makes his Shakespeare and Plato influence very evident. It shows me that philosophy builds upon other philosophy. Even though some philosophers credit only themselves with the thinking, it is not always entirely true. Take Descartes for example, he is the father of modern thought, the statement above is not fully his own, but it does lead to his declaration, " I think, therefore I exist." Half of the process was done for him.
This statement has also very recently started applying to me. When I read it, I couldn't believe it's truth. For most of my life, dreams were never a big deal to me. I was never the kid who showed up to school with a crazy dream story to tell, or have one to compare to. No, my dreams are normally just reenactments of memories that haunt me. Upon reading Shakespeare it has been quite the opposite. My dreams feel so real and I am able to remember every detail. In some of them, I have even woken up in the dream, told a friend I had a bizarre dream, and have then gone back to sleep. The last week has been filled with deja vu and flashbacks of visions of the previous night. What's even worse is that they are actually plausible. I've been having trouble deciphering what has really happened or if it was only part of my dream the night before. Descartes took the words right out of my mouth. The only way I've been able to sift through dreams and reality, is to pretend for the moment I don't know anything. Slowly, I place all the puzzle pieces together. It almost coincides with his rules of logic.
I don't know what's happening, but I ultimately feel like my mind has somehow been opened up to something new.
Miranda, Descartes was probably more influenced by his fellow Frenchman, Montaigne, than by Shakespeare (who was himself influenced by Montaigne), but it's great that you're making connections with other philosophers we've read this semester. Sorry to hear that this class has been disturbing your sleep! I sometimes dream about the same topics I am teaching you, or even dream that I am actually teaching the class -- but so far I haven't gotten the dream too confused with reality!
ReplyDeleteI have had some interesting problems with perception as well. I question how I know things and how others know things. I have started to question my childhood memories. I have come to believe after reading and discussing these topics that most of my child hood memories are based off of photos that my mom took of me. Its like I will remember something and then I will find a photo of it and I will wonder weather I formulated the memory from seeing the photo some time in the past or if I really remembered these event very accurately.
ReplyDeleteI have all so been doing a project for studio, I have been conducting interviews with several people about one topic. THis is really funny because almost every person has contradicted every other persons interview. My interview subjects have not seen each others interviews. I will ask them questions about toys that were available at the time when they were small some will say certain things did not exist and some will say that they had 100 of a type of toy. It is hard to decide what information is most based on reality and what is perception and weather it matters or not.