The Dream Argument and Descartes' First Meditation

It is a standard criticism of Descartes' dream argument that it must necessarily fail because it is inconsistent with itself: it has to assume the truth of what it sets out to deny. It concludes that there is no difference between dreaming and waking and that our experiences may be false delusions, while the premises, which liken waking to dreaming and assert the illusory character of the latter, presuppose that there is such a difference. As Ryle said in criticism of the argument from illusion: just as it makes no sense to talk of counterfeit coins when there are no genuine ones to contrast them with, so it makes no sense to talk of illusory experiences like dreams without waking and veridical ones to contrast them with. I believe that, despite several attempts to argue the contrary, this criticism is correct. However, I also believe that it is a criticism that needs stating with some care. This is because the inconsistency in the dream argument is present at more than one point, and because it appears to be present at a point where in fact it is not. I shall try to show this in Part I of what follows. In Part II I shall make some remarks about Descartes' procedure in Meditation 1 arising from reflections on why he committed the error in question.