Dreams and Paintings: Descartes, Dream Skepticism, and the Constitution of Mental States

Abstract

Contemporary epistemologists typically read Descartes’ dream argument as an argument for external world skepticism. This paper argues that Descartes’ own development of the issues suggests otherwise and enquires into the reasons for this divergence. The Cartesian meditator, it will be shown, resists external world skepticism by substantiating that the objects of dreams depend on the existence of a spatiotemporal world. Based on this reconstruction, it is suggested that the Cartesian development of skepticism embodies a non‐standard conception of epistemology, termed the primacy of the constitutive, according to which epistemic facts and principles are grounded in the constitution of mental states. It is conjectured that this difference explains the divergent conclusions the Cartesian meditator and contemporary epistemologists draw from the dream argument. These results further our understanding of external world skepticism and raise the bar for the dream skeptic.