Dreams, Nightmares, and a Defense Against Arguments from Evil (original) (raw)
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This paper provides one Jungian response to a question from a symposium on Citron's Dreams, Nightmares, and a Defense against Arguments from Evil: Is dream-suffering as significant as waking suffering? The response provided is affirmative. Dream-based insight and its accompanying suffering at least, if not more significant than waking suffering. This, on instrumental grounds, is because the dream based suffering – when understood – can produce (even empirical) learning that the conscious mind alone cannot. This reprises Henri Poincaré's point, but places it in an expanded Jungian context, which provides a religious and moral dimension or seriousness that Poincaré's approach omits.
DREAM EPISTEMOLOGIES AND QUASI-DREAMLIKE EPISTEMOLOGIES
Can dreams and dreaming open access to alternative ways of knowing and being? The following description of dream epistemologies and quasi-dreamlike epistemologies is an open ended musing upon the general themes garnered from the course work and experience of the graduate level Dream Studies Certificate Program (DSCP) provided by Saybrook University. It is composed in a spontaneous prose format in the “impressionistic style” (p. 269) of phenomenological reporting described by Steinar Kvale (1996) and contains some free flowing stream of consciousness imagery as narrative devices for more immediate communication. Keywords: dreams, dreaming, wake-dream continuity, existential, phenomenological, epistemology, psychology, wisdom traditions, science, spirituality, religion, neurophenomenology, free will, person-centered science
Radcliffe Humanities, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG, U.K. https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/dreams-and-their-interpretation Philosophy of Dreams | Can I be immoral in my dreams? What makes dreams different from awaken reality is that thoughts and images, sensations and feelings are hosted in a dimension where logic is somehow shifted: the basic principle that underlies its propositions-something is what it is and cannot be something else-does not work anymore, or it plays a different function 1[1]. While awake, the chair I am sitting on, the glass of water upon the table, lights that come through the window are all manifestations of a reality that still exists when I am dreaming: yet, the consciousness of these phenomena is inwardly diverted, and often distorted, because reality has there a different source; dreams are projections of an individual light that is shed onto phenomena that aren't visible by instruments-our senses-rather than a speculative function, that mirrors objects in our inner life. Nevertheless, the light that makes dreams possible, which dualism supposes different from the one that shapes reality as it is, arranges objects and people in a scenario that symbolize reality, as in a theatrical representation: if something puzzles us for its consequences, i. e. actions that follows a track of events in a storyline, they might-or might not-be judged as moral, or immoral, accordingly to laws everybody has made theirs. But are these laws still effective in a world where logic is set aside? Is possible to apply the same operators, as they work with logic, to shape our judgement over events, and give rewards and punishments accordingly? The question made upon what morality can be observed in dreams cannot be separated from ontological issues: is dream a different reality? If answered correctly, the moral I follow in the one and only world I live in will give me [Digitare qui] 1 Scientists and philosophers have addressed this question since very early in history; many are the functions theorist have appointed to dreams: we decide to stick on the mainstream varieties, that are Freudian psychoanalysis, according to which dreams are wishes that unconscious tries to bubble on the surface of consciousness; Flanagan point of view-dreams are epiphenomenal occurrences, or evolutionary by-products, like some elements in architecture, the spandrels of arches-and Revonsuo adaptive theory, that considers dreams as rehearsal of threats that may happen in waking life.
Philosophy of Dreaming: A New Kind of Reality
Dreaming has been a subject for debate for thousands of years as to what it entails and how it affects daily living. This paper goes into depth about if dreaming holds reality within, and if morality should be taken into consideration
Safety and Dream Scepticism in Sosa's Epistemology (w/ Robert Cowan)
Synthese, 2024
A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his defenders have offered two central response types to the idea that allowing unsafe knowledge is problematic: one response type adverts to the animal/reflective knowledge distinction that is characteristic of bi-level virtue epistemology. The other less-discussed response type appeals to the threat of dream scepticism, and in particular, to the idea that many of our everyday perceptual beliefs are unsafe through the nearness of the dream possibility. The latter dreaming response to the safety objection to Sosa’s virtue epistemology has largely flown under the radar in contemporary discussions of safety and knowledge. We think that, suitably articulated in view of research in the philosophy and science of dreaming, it has much more going for it than has been appreciated. This paper further develops, beyond what Sosa does himself, the dreaming argument in response to those who think safety (as traditionally understood) is a condition on knowledge and who object to Sosa’s account on the grounds that it fails this condition. The payoffs of further developing this argument will be not only a better understanding of the importance of insights about dreaming against safety as a condition on knowledge, but also some reason to think a weaker safety condition, one that is relativised to SSS (i.e., skill/shape/situation) conditions for competence exercise, gets better results all things considered as an anti-luck codicil on knowledge.
Dreams Disclose an Existential Truth
Medard Boss’ approach to analysis of dreams stems from his Daseinsanalysis theory. Dreams, just as waking life, discloses a truth about the existence of the individual. Boss’ approach to phenomenological psychology was inspired by his earlier study in psychoanalysis while training for his medical degree. However, although Boss felt that the method Freud used was useful in dealing with clients, he disagreed with the underlining theory. Daseinsanalysis, based on Heidegger’s ontology, naturally rejects notions of ‘the unconscious’ as it does not appear as a phenomenon in consciousness. The manifest dream speaks for itself, disclosing an existential truth to the being who questions their being. Daseinsanalysis’ approach to dreams can be discovered and implemented by anyone who has an interest in understanding the core of their inner life and how they can fulfill their potential in the world.
Reality dreams and their effects on spiritual belief: A revision of animism theory (1991)
Dream images: A call to mental arms, 1991
This chapter introduces the notion of 'oneirogenesis' or the origin of daytime beliefs in dream experiences. Dreams with an exceptionally vivid sensation of reality ('reality dreams')--of which there are many types (e.g., nightmares, lucid dreams, flying dreams, sex dreams)--are particularly likely to engender and modify waking beliefs. Moreover, animistic beliefs (e.g., that the soul exists independent of the body) and other beliefs in spiritual entities and events are especially likely to be influenced by such dreams. Examples are provided from both the historical literature and laboratory studies.
As sources of knowledge, perception and testimony are both vulnerable to sceptical arguments. To both arguments a Moorean response is possible: both can be refuted by reference to particular things known by perception and testimony. However, lies and dreams are different possibilities and they are different in a way that undercuts the plausibility of a Moorean response to a scepticism of testimony. The condition placed on testimonial knowledge cannot be trivially satisfi ed in the way the Moorean would suggest. This has substantial implications for any non-sceptical epistemological theory of testimony.