Stroud I 101
Dream/Skepticism/Thompson Clarke/Stroud: Ex One physiology lectures that people with certain disorders do not know if they are awake.
Pointe: he has not answered a philosophical problem with this.
Then he is not misusing the word "knowledge" either. - And this is exactly how we use the word.
>
Knowledge.
Stroud I 264
Skepticism/Stroud: solution/Thompson Clarke: two uses of words (>representativity). - Proposition: skeptical doubts are ambiguous
a) "commonplace
b) "philosophical": ex. sleep researcher: uses "dream" everyday. Real possibilities: must be understood everyday. - Philosophical: here knowledge imagined as acquired on waking would have to be inviolable. - I.e. the philosophical problem is that I can never tell if I woke up.
I 267
Clarke: Thesis: But if I can never know "philosophically" whether I dream, then the dream possibility does not exist at all: I would have to imagine something that I cannot imagine at all. - ((s) here the possibility to wake up is always presupposed).
Stroud I 267
Dream/ClarkeVsSkepticism: skepticism negates the knowledge it presupposes. - Real possibility: exists only if knowledge is not questioned.
Generalization/Clarke/Stroud: it follows that I cannot question all my knowledge. Here, a possible success in a particular case cannot be generalized - that would only be possible if it were possible to have the knowledge that occurs in that possibility. - Therefore, I cannot question all my knowledge. ((s) Here no objects are doubted, but facts or statements.)
Dream/ClarkeVsSkepticism: skepticism negates the knowledge it presupposes.
Real possibility: exists only if knowledge is not questioned.
Stroud I 269
Skepticism/Solution/Clarke: Skepticism would be falsified:
a) if somebody wakes up
b) if someone from outside would come to earth.
Conclusion: no skepticism follows from the dream possibility, even if it is involved in the everyday knowability of the external world.
Stroud: Question: does the dream possibility presuppose knowledge? I have shown how complicated this is.
Clarke: this touches on the question of objectivity: someone else must determine that I am dreaming. - ((s) If no one was ever awake, the word has a different meaning).
But when all dream, they cannot be "in the same boat"! - They cannot be in the same dream as dreamers.
((s) The meaning of dream is that I cannot determine the content of your dream). - It is useless to ask if the demon or God is not dreaming himself.
